The Stone-Hearted Queen
by TheGirlWhoRemembers
Summary: "There's a storm outside, they got nowhere to go, and they're just kids, Patty, you gotta let them stay!" Orphaned, hunted and desperate, Mac, Bozer and Riley seek refuge in the home of a cursed Queen, said to have a heart of stone. After befriending the castle's also-cursed inhabitants, they try to break the curse…by helping the Queen and her Captain of the Guard fall in love.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I have absolutely no idea where this came from. Seriously, no idea. But it happened, so here it is – a _MacGyver_ fairytale!AU, starring Patricia Thornton as a cursed Queen with a heart of stone (supposedly), and Jack as her ever-faithful Captain of the Guard, complete with teenage!Mac, Bozer and Riley and an ensemble cast.

Trigger warning on this first chapter of slight, passive suicidal ideation (for a brief period of time, a character considers allowing others to kill them).

* * *

 _Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Phoenix, there lived a Queen. She was, of course, beautiful, but she was also a clever, just ruler, cool-headed and very capable of making decisions for the good of all. Under her rule, the kingdom flourished._

 _However, this particular Queen was also rumoured to have a heart of stone. She had plenty of suitors, yet turned every one away, seemingly without care, without being moved in the slightest by their words or their gifts or even their actions._

 _And one day…one of those suitors, who happened to be a very powerful wizard, took the Queen's rejection of him very, very poorly._

 _He cursed the Queen._

 _And, as is often forgotten in these tales, he cursed her home and her loyal servants and aides as well._

 _He cursed them to remain trapped behind the castle walls, like the Queen's heart was encased in stone, and he cursed them to remain unchanging and unmoved, like the Queen's heart was._

 _And, as is often left out of these tales, so as not to scare children, he cursed her entire kingdom too, simply out of spite._

 _Now, the Queen was herself a powerful witch._

 _But still, she could not break the curse._

 _And so, she was forced to watch as her kingdom fell into disarray, as fear and partisanship replaced the hope and unity she'd cultivated._

 _That was, undoubtedly, the cruellest part of the scorned suitor's curse._

* * *

Queen Patricia, the last of the Thornton line, lifted her hands from the crystal ball that served as her only window into the outside world.

The images she'd seen were much the same as the images she'd seen every day for the last 200 years.

After she'd been cursed, the kingdom had turned against magic.

It was, of course, part of her curse. She was doomed to forever, for all eternity, have to witness the downfall of her people, the decay of her kingdom, and be powerless to fight it.

Now, it was not only witches and wizards who were persecuted for their magic and often burned at the stake, but also others whom the masses decided must have magic too, given their talents or their eccentricities, or, often, both.

Too many a gifted ( _too_ gifted, apparently) healer had died in flames.

The Order of Engineers, an order of noble, clever, innovative people, who travelled the kingdom on the service of their ruler to help the common people solve unconventional or seemingly unsolvable problems in unconventional ways, was now thought to be extinct outside the walls of her castle.

She gave a small nod, one that would have seemed, perhaps, to most as nothing but cool acceptance, acknowledgement, but, to the man sitting in the corner of her study, was distinctly sad, angry and guilty, all at once.

Sir Jack Dalton, Knight of Phoenix, Captain of the Queen's Guard, had his feet up on a very expensive coffee table, something that the Queen ignored.

(She'd given up on Jack and his bad habit regarding her finest coffee table about 90 years ago.)

'Still looking bad, Patty?'

(That was very, very far from being a proper form of address for her. Jack knew that. He did it anyway.)

(She'd given up on that decades ago too. A lot of formality tended to fall away when you'd spent 200 years trapped within the grounds of your castle under a curse with a small group of those most loyal to you. Besides, Jack Dalton was a very stubborn man…and he had a way of getting under your skin.)

She inclined her head again, then spoke, her voice reflecting that sadness and anger and guilt that he could read so clearly across her face, an almost-defeated note in there too.

'It never changes, Jack.'

There was a knock on the door, and a moment later, the door to the Queen's study unlocked and opened by magic.

In stepped a very short, brunette woman of about the Queen's and Jack's age (middle-years) and a slim, blonde woman of about twenty.

Matty, the Queen's Spymaster, and Cage, her apprentice.

The four gathered around the crystal ball as Queen Patricia started to report what she'd seen.

Given their curse, there was probably no point in continuing their weekly meetings.

Still, they did, if only to have something to do.

And because hope, frail though it was, was very, very hard to kill.

* * *

Seventeen-year-old Angus MacGyver, known to his loved ones (not that he had many left, not at all) as Mac, and everyone else as MacGyver (why his parents had named him Angus, he'd never know), gave a little nod as he put the finishing touches on the little tool he'd constructed, painstakingly, from what little bits and bobs he'd found in the cell of the town prison he'd been locked in.

(He was thankful that it was not often cleaned, and that he had plenty to work with.)

He stared up at the solidly-barred window high in the wall.

It was dark, and moonrise would be soon.

It was almost time to enact his escape plan, to use that little tool.

But not yet.

He still had to wait a little longer.

He gave a sad sigh and slumped to the floor.

Two weeks ago, he'd been a blacksmith's apprentice, to Alfred Pena, one of the town's blacksmiths, a true master of the craft.

Pena had been very, very good to Mac, and the teen thought of him almost as a father.

(Mac was an orphan; his mother was dead, his father gone. He had no blood family left to speak of; the last, his grandfather, had passed away about a year and a half ago.)

Then, Mac had returned to the smithy from running an errand on the other side of the town, to find that the building (thankfully isolated from others, for fire-safety reasons) had been annihilated by an explosion.

Two days later, Pena's widow had given birth to their first child, a little girl whom she'd named Annabelle.

Three days after that, Mac had been found guilty of murder by witchcraft and sentenced to death by burning at the stake.

(There'd been rumours of a wizard in the area, one known only as The Ghost, who delighted in killing with his magic by causing explosions, but as soon as the town guard had come for him, mere hours after Pena's death, Mac had known that he was to wear the blame, not the mysterious wizard.)

(After all, almost all the townspeople had been suspicious of him for years. There was, it was said, something very _odd_ about him, and with the rumours – which were true, though Mac had been sensible enough to never confirm them – that his grandfather was an Engineer, and the disappearance of his father, surrounded by whispers of threats and dark matters, and incidents like the Mechanical Scarecrow Incident in Farmer Wilson's cornfield…)

Now, the night before he was to be killed, Mac was finally ready to escape the prison, and the town, and live a life of exile, trying to find somewhere to belong.

(He was very, very lucky that he would not be going alone – despite his protests to the contrary, his best friend since the age of nine, Wilt Bozer, nineteen, a tailor and a fellow orphan, would be going with him.)

The blonde held up the little tool he'd made, to pick the lock on his cell, among other things.

It hadn't taken him nine days to make it.

It hadn't taken nine days for him and Bozer to concoct their escape plan in secretive, night-time visits, aided by a sympathetic member of the town guard, an older man named Arthur Ericson who'd taught Mac and Bozer when they'd been in school.

No, Mac had been too caught up in his grief, his anguish, his guilt (it should have been him, not Pena, not when the blacksmith had a wife and a baby on the way and Mac had no-one save his mentor and Bozer) to think straight, to prepare, to do what he did best.

(In secret, Mac's grandfather had taught him the craft of an Engineer as best as he could, but he had passed before Mac's training could be called anywhere near complete.)

And, a little voice in his head that Mac really didn't want to hear, maybe he hadn't _wanted_ to live. Mac shoved that voice back into a box to shut it up.

He wanted to live now.

That was all that mattered.

It was almost time now.

All he had to do was wait for Bozer's distraction to start.

He heard footsteps, coming towards his cell, and Mac's brow furrowed as panic started to rise in his chest.

This was not part of the plan.

There shouldn't be anyone here, not now…

His eyes widened as several of bars of his cell were warped and bent, pushed outwards as if by an invisible force, an opening appearing, large enough for him to pass through.

Magic.

A shadowy figure walked into his field of vision, head covered by the hood of their cloak, their face in shadow.

'Come on!'

It was a female voice, and she gestured to the hole.

Mac, shaking himself out of his shock, found his voice again.

'What are you doing?'

The woman snorted, as if she couldn't believe he was asking that.

'Saving your life! Do you _want_ to burn to death?' She gestured to him, clearly telling him to hurry up. 'We don't have much time, my distraction won't-'

There was a muffled boom, then shouts, and then, what looked like fireworks lit up the patch of sky visible in Mac's cell's window.

Startled, surprised, Mac's mysterious would-be saviour tossed back the hood of her cloak, revealing dark, slightly-wild, curly hair and a pretty face. A young face. She couldn't have been any older than Mac, surely. She stared at the fireworks through the window for a moment, then turned back to the blonde.

'What-'

He gave a very wry little smile.

'That is the distraction part of my own escape plan…'

The girl cursed.

'Oh, _great.'_

* * *

Two weeks later, Mac, Bozer and Mac's magical would-be rescuer, Riley Davis, sat in the woods, cold, wet, hungry, tired and scared, under a makeshift shelter that Mac had put together using sticks, tree bark and leaves, as Bozer cooked the last of their meagre food supply in a fire set into a hole in the ground (to minimize the chances of it being seen), hole and fire both made by Riley with her magic.

Mac pulled his cloak tighter around him and toyed with his Engineer's knife (the cloak and the knife - which wasn't _really_ a knife, at least not _just_ a knife; it was a multi-purpose tool and a signature of the Order of Engineers – were two of the very few possessions of his that Bozer had been able to save), as Riley, too, pulled her own cloak tighter around her with a shiver.

The collision of their two plans had led to neither going well. In fact, both had become disasters, and the three of them had been lucky to manage to escape Mac and Bozer's former hometown.

Now, they were wanted and had a bounty on their heads, every town guardsman, lord's man-at-arms and bounty hunter in the area pursuing them.

For two weeks, they'd been running and hiding, foraging for food and stealing when they needed to.

As Bozer hummed half-heartedly to himself as he cooked, Mac and Riley made eye contact across the fire-pit.

They knew, they all knew, that this situation was untenable. It couldn't continue.

Sooner or later, they'd find themselves captured (or, more likely, worse), or they'd get sick, either from cold or starvation.

Riley shivered again as her stomach growled, then spoke, addressing Mac, voice sharper and snarkier than she'd intended, a product of being cold, wet, miserable, hungry and frightened.

'If you'd just executed your big escape plan earlier, we wouldn't be in this mess.'

Bozer looked up from his cooking, a little wide-eyed, and tried to mediate, to cut off the argument they could all feel approaching before it really got going.

'Sweetheart-'

Riley shot him a glare and cut him off. Bozer had been flirting with her heavily pretty much as soon as Mac had shown up to his and Bozer's planned meeting point with her in tow. She did _not_ appreciate it, even if he was kind-of cute.

'I told you not to call me that!'

He put his hands up in supplication.

'Honeybun…'

Bozer trailed off as his best friend shot him a _look._ Then, Mac looked back over at Riley, tugging his own cloak closer around him.

'I didn't ask you to save me.'

There was more than enough bitterness, enough pain, in his voice that Bozer shot the blonde a very, very concerned look (he had known that for a while, after Pena's death, Mac had lost the will to live, but surely, he'd regained it…though Bozer supposed that with how dire their situation was, and Mac's tendency to blame himself for everything he possibly could – such as possibly dragging his best friend and their new friend to their deaths, not that Mac could be called responsible for their situation at all, in Bozer's mind – his will might be wavering a little again), and even Riley's expression softened.

After a moment of silence, Mac sighed, reached up and ran a hand through his slightly-damp hair. Bozer got up from his spot before the pot, and crouched down again beside Mac, putting a hand on his shoulder, eyes still concerned. The blonde looked between him and Riley, who had a spark of curiosity in her eyes.

(Riley was clever – very clever - and also rather inquisitive by nature, though not quite as curious as Mac was.)

(A week ago, on a far better, more optimistic night, she and Mac had put together a makeshift chess set with some river pebbles, and Bozer had gotten to witness his best friend _lose_ a best-of-three series of games, something he'd never seen before.)

After another moment of silence, Mac looked down at the fire, then spoke, his voice soft and sad, a note of pain underlying it all.

'My mom died when I was five. My dad left when I was ten. My grandfather raised me…' He swallowed, and Bozer squeezed his shoulder again. '…and he died a year and a half ago.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out his Engineer's knife, his grandfather's most precious possession, which he'd gifted to Mac when he'd turned twelve. The tool was all he had left of the man now, and Mac took comfort in toying with it to keep his hands busy. 'Al…Al became family. Like Bozer.' Mac turned his head a little and managed a very wan little smile at his best friend, the only family he had left, who returned it, squeezing his shoulder again. 'And then…'

He trailed off, wiping his eyes. Riley was familiar with the circumstances surrounding the blacksmith's death, of course. He finally looked over at the girl, and saw understanding, empathy in her eyes.

A very soft expression for her, tough-as-nails, determined to prove it, and with more walls than a fortress.

'…You thought it should have been you.' She swallowed, looking down at the fire-pit. 'You might even have wished it was.'

Mac swallowed and nodded, before joining Bozer in looking at Riley with understanding and sorrow. The girl was silent for a long moment, just staring at the fire, before she seemed to come to a decision and looked up at them.

'My dad was an asshole. Gambler, drunkard, thief and abusive.' Some sort of fire burned in her eyes, and she looked away, but not down, staring into the trees. 'When I was thirteen, he showed up at me and my mom's house and…he tried to throw her around.' Riley paused, swallowed, hesitated a moment, before continuing, her voice softer, confessional, a little vulnerable, even. 'I…I used my magic to protect her and…and I…I…I killed him.' She hesitated to look up at her new friends, a little fearful of their reactions. Both of these boys seemed to exude goodness; Riley doubted that there was a mean bone in their bodies. Besides, Mac, at the very least, seemed to have an extremely strong aversion to killing; three days ago, they'd had to construct (or rather, Mac had, mostly – he'd directed them, and had done most of the building himself, as he was the best and fastest at it) a trap for two bounty hunters who'd been chasing them, and Mac had very specifically devoted much effort to ensuring that it would not kill or severely injure the two men. But she didn't see revulsion in their eyes; in fact, she was quite sure that she saw some kind of sympathy, sympathy that she'd had to do such a terrible thing. 'When…when they came…' She didn't need to specify who _they_ were; witch-hunters, an angry mob of townspeople, the guardsmen, soldiers, it didn't matter. It was all the same in the end. '…my mom said she'd done it.' Bozer shifted closer to her, and put a hand on her shoulder, a comforting gesture, not a flirtatious one. 'They…she let them…she burned.' Riley refused to let the tears fall, and swallowed the lump in her throat. She took a breath, a little shuddery, then another, deeper and steadier, then lifted her chin. 'I couldn't save my mom, but…I promised myself that I'd practice my magic, grow stronger. And use my powers to save people from dying like she did. For her.'

There was clear admiration in both boys' eyes now. Both of them spoke, half over each other.

'I'm sorry, Riley.'

'Riley, I am so, so sorry…'

Bozer squeezed her shoulder again, then lifted his hand off her, and once it was gone, Riley realized that she quite liked that warm weight there, almost missed it.

The dark-skinned boy reached for some humour, some levity, some light in the darkness, in the way that they'd realized, happily, they all had a tendency to. Bozer pointed at both of his companions, an expression somewhere between a grin and a smirk on his face.

'Eh, maybe we're all gonna grow up to be heroes!' His grin-smirk faltered. 'All good heroes have a tragic backstory…' Riley glanced over at him, as Mac scooted over a little to put a comforting hand on his best friend's shoulder. Bozer sighed, wetness appearing in his eyes. 'My little brother died when we were kids. It was an accident involving my dad's sword…' He swallowed. '…and then, three years ago, my parents were killed in a coach robbery gone wrong.'

Riley looked over at him, sought out his eyes.

'I'm sorry, Bozer.'

He nodded in thanks, then, after another moment of silence and shared grief, Bozer got up and rubbed his hands together.

'Now, who's hungry?'

He started ladling out three bowls of some unidentifiable stew, which brightened both Mac and Riley's moods a little.

Bozer was an excellent cook, and had managed to do some frankly wondrous things with what food they'd had in their two weeks on the run.

* * *

AN: So, what'd you think of that? Did I do a good job adapting canon elements to this AU? I am really sorry for killing off Diane Davis, and Mr and Mrs Bozer (and slightly less sorry for killing off Ellwood…), but for the sake of this story's plot, it had to happen. An Engineer's knife is, of course, this AU's version of a Swiss Army knife…


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thoughts on 2.14, Mardi Gras Beads + Chair, at the end of this chapter, complete with spoilers.

* * *

Mac, Bozer and Riley ran through the woods, rather aimlessly.

(Mac could navigate by the stars, but that was only useful when one had an intended destination; they'd just been heading north.)

About half an hour ago, they'd very unfortunately encountered a group of the local lord's men-at-arms. Said lord was not a very noble or reputable fellow, not at all.

That was exemplified by his men, a mob of brutish, rough mercenaries, who were now pursuing them through the woods.

They were younger, lighter and more agile than the men, which was just about the only advantage they had.

Well, that, and Mac's uncanny knack for improvising; a few of their pursuers had been taken out by everything from branches rigged to snap back into them to strategically-placed rocks.

All three teens cursed as they came into a clearing, bordered on three sides by fairly dense woods, and on the fourth side by a wide, fast-moving stream, which Mac quickly assessed as being far too dangerous to cross on foot.

They glanced at each other, and the cogs in Mac's brain kept turning, as idea after idea came into his head, some discarded instantly, some retained and considered for longer.

They had plenty of wood around them, and while Riley wasn't a very skilled witch, never having had any training, she could levitate and move objects reasonably well; maybe they could put together a bridge…

However, before he could open his mouth to share his kernel of an idea, they heard a single set of footsteps, moving fast, before a large man wielding a wicked and sharp-looking sword burst into the clearing, a triumphant and cruel snarl on his face.

Mac grabbed a thick, approximately three-foot-long stick from the ground, giving Bozer and Riley a quick, urgent glance.

'Run!'

It was every bit an order.

Both of them hesitated a moment, before Bozer seized Riley's arm and pulled her away, running, as his best friend had ordered.

For a moment, as they ran, Bozer leading her, Riley wondered how in the world Bozer could leave his best friend, his brother in all but blood, behind, no matter what Mac had said, before she realized that they were doubling back, back to that clearing, and that Bozer was muttering under his breath, annoyed and exasperated and worried and fond all at once, about his best friend's self-sacrificing tendencies, which, as they approached the clearing again, became mutters of _what would he do, come on, Bozer, think like Mac does…_

As they, hidden by the trees, approached the clearing again, where Mac was, quite admirably, fending off the much larger soldier with his stick, which had been broken in two; he now held half in each hand. It was obvious that Mac was no fighter of any sort, but he was very quick, agile and coordinated, had fast reflexes and was surprisingly strong. His brilliant intellect also seemed to be serving him well; he learned fast and moved strategically, finding every little advantage he could.

However, there was blood trickling down his left arm, where he'd obviously been cut by the man's sword.

Bozer and Riley exchanged a very quick glance, and then Bozer pulled their frying pan from the pack on his back, shrugging off the pack to allow faster and freer movement.

'Riley, can you distract him?'

The girl nodded, concentrating and raising a hand, and a large branch broke off a tree in the middle of the soldier's field of vision, and started waving around.

'What the-'

Mac, adaptive and quick-witted as ever, pushed his advantage, as Bozer ran up behind the soldier and conked him hard on the back of the head with the frying pan.

He dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, clearly unconscious, as Bozer stood over him, the frying pan still raised.

'You wanna hurt my best friend, you gotta go through me!'

Mac gave a wry little smile, raising a brow at them as Riley stepped out of the trees.

'I thought I told you to run?'

Riley snorted and crossed her arms.

'Who put _you_ in charge?'

Mac, too, gave a snort and shook his head, a note of fondness in the action, then winced, a hand going to his now very bloody left forearm. Riley and Bozer exchanged another concerned glance, which Mac noticed.

'I'll be fine.' Bozer and Riley both looked very sceptical, and Mac glanced at his arm, then back at them, before sighing and crouching to the ground, unlacing the ties around his neck that held his cloak up and letting it drop to the floor. 'A, we don't have any medical supplies, B, none of us is anywhere near being a healer, and C, we have to keep moving.'

He pulled out his Engineer's knife, as Bozer sighed, shoulders slumping a little in worry, while Riley swallowed hers down and nodded. A moment later, Bozer did the same, and they got to work.

Riley crouched beside the fallen soldier, taking everything from him that could possibly be of use, while Bozer helped Mac to cut a long strip of material from his cloak to bind the wound with.

Overhead, dark storm clouds gathered.

* * *

About two hours later, it was pouring rain. The wind had picked up, and the thunderclaps and lightning strikes were getting closer together.

'We need to find shelter!'

Riley brushed her sopping-wet hair out of her face as she shivered. All three of them were soaking wet, despite the makeshift over-cloaks and hats that Mac had improvised for them, using mostly leaves.

The storm was that bad.

And it only seemed to be getting worse.

Besides, Mac was looking very, very pale. Even paler than usual.

The tattered remains of his lower left sleeve and the makeshift bandage were both soaked with blood, and Riley was quite sure, even if Mac would never say it, that the wound hadn't stopped bleeding. It was likely deeper than Mac would admit.

Bozer turned to her, extremely worried, but also clearly feeling extremely helpless.

' _Where,_ Riley? _How_?'

Mac, meanwhile, was staring at the very poor excuse of a trail in front of them, what looked to be a path worn down by hunters or woodsmen, perhaps, or maybe even deer.

(They were following it solely because it was easier than bashing through the overgrowth and trees.)

He crouched down, and started tearing out clumps of the grass that reached their knees with his right hand, then brushed moss and soil away too, then studied the ground for a moment.

A smile appeared on his face, and he turned back to face Bozer and Riley, gesturing to the ground.

'This is a path!' Bozer and Riley leaned closer to get a better look. Mac had uncovered a couple of worn flagstones, and was now pointing down the severely overgrown path. 'Flagstone paths don't build themselves, and people don't build them to nowhere.' He got up. 'There has to be a building at the end of it.'

* * *

'Cage?'

The Queen turned expectantly to the Spymaster's apprentice, turning her back to the image projected above the crystal ball of three teenagers, cold, wet, exhausted and clearly wary, one of them bloodied and pale, creeping through the castle's expansive grounds, clothed oddly in what appeared to be cloaks and hats made of leaves.

As usual, as soon as the trio had stepped through the gates, into the grounds, an intruder alert, not detectable by said intruders, had gone through the castle, and Jack, Matty and Cage had rushed to the Queen's study, while the other castle inhabitants had hid.

While Jack had no magic, all three women in the room did, though to varying degrees. Matty possessed only a little magic, enough to be more talented at discerning truth from lies and reading people's hearts and minds than ordinary people, but could do nothing else. Cage, meanwhile, had enough to move or summon objects, create illusions, conjure fire and the like, and had a special gift for discerning hearts and minds and truths and lies, being even more talented at it than the Queen.

The blonde woman nodded, closed her eyes and concentrated.

'They're scared, but brave…they've experienced a lot of tragedy…the girl has magic, but no training…the blonde boy has no magic, but many believe he does…and they're desperate.' Cage opened her eyes, hints of sorrow and sympathy creeping into her nearly-always calm voice. 'They have nowhere else to go and no family save each other.'

All four turned to study the three teenagers in the projected image, who'd since settled themselves into the stable, the girl and the shorter boy sharing a concerned glance behind their friend's back. The blonde was very, very pale and wan and weak, the fabric wrapped around his left forearm saturated with blood.

The three women were evaluative, Matty and Cage's expressions clearly not cold, not without sympathy, the Queen's gaze cooler than theirs, even though Jack could see sympathy and care there, clear as day.

The image of the trio of teens, huddled in the stable, tugged sharply at Jack's heartstrings. He had always been far less cool than the three women, his emotions far less restrained, with a hotter temper and a more open heart.

So, he turned to his Queen, looked insistently and imploringly at her, gesturing to the image of the three youths, barely out of childhood.

'There's a storm outside, they got nowhere to go, and they're just kids, Patty, you gotta let them stay!'

For the tiniest of moments, she just stared at him, as if she was looking right _into_ him, something that had once been disconcerting, but over more than 200 years, he'd grown used to.

They'd had visitors before, including ones who'd stayed for years. Jack had never reacted quite so strongly to any of them.

(He had no idea why. Sure, they were the youngest visitors they'd ever had, at least, the youngest _unaccompanied_ visitors, but there was something else, something he couldn't quite define…)

Then, she nodded, as much warmth as she ever had in her eyes.

'They can stay, for as long as they wish.' She gestured to the image above the crystal ball with a little movement of her head. 'Jack, go welcome our guests.' He nodded immediately, and almost-literally ran out of the room. Cage and Matty both swore that that brought a tiny, fond smile to their Queen's face for a brief second. 'Cage…'

The Queen trailed off, knowing that the young woman knew what her instructions were.

(Jack claimed that it gave him the heebie-jeebies when they did stuff like that.)

Cage nodded, then strode out of the room to alert their healer that she'd have patients soon, and then to the kitchen to prepare hot soup and bread.

Alone in the Queen's study, the two older women, one tall, one very short, simply exchanged a glance, then returned to gazing at the image of the three teens in the stable.

* * *

'…Boze, I'll be fine…'

Mac fell silent as he heard footsteps approaching, exchanging a glance with Bozer and Riley.

 _Hopefully, whatever lord this castle belongs to is kind enough to let us stay, just for the night._

 _And, more importantly, hopefully the isolation of his place means that he doesn't know we're wanted criminals yet…or might even be sympathetic to us._

The castle gates had opened automatically as they'd approached. The lamps in the stable had all automatically flickered on the instant they'd entered. There was magic in this place. Powerful magic.

 _After all, there has to be a reason for living in a castle in the woods in the middle of nowhere._

 _I don't like relying on hope and luck; I prefer to make my own. But now, we don't have a choice._

He got up and reached for an old broom with his right hand, being careful not to jostle his wounded arm. Bozer, meanwhile, took up their frying pan again, while a selection of old horseshoes, stacked on a shelf, rattled slightly, and Riley gave a little nod, her hands moving a little by her sides.

A man entered the stable, aged in his early forties, with short brown hair, dressed in a simple, but well-made, shirt, trousers and cloak. His hands were raised and there was a reassuring smile on his face, his only weapon a dagger at his belt.

Well, his only _visible_ weapon.

He was well-built, obviously strong, and moved like an exceptionally skilled warrior. He surely wouldn't be armed with only a dagger, and his fists were probably an excellent weapon all on their own.

He stared at them for a moment as they all stared back, something flickering across his face that seemed to be an odd mix of approval and sadness.

Then, he _waved_ and _grinned._

'Hello, and welcome to our humble abode!' Mac, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance. This was _not_ what they were expecting. Perhaps this man was insane? 'Sir Jack Dalton, Captain of the Guard, Knight of the Kingdom of Phoenix, and right hand to the lady of this castle!' That was said with a flourish and an exaggerated bow, before Sir Dalton straightened up again and looked more serious, eyes gentling. 'No-one's gonna hurt you, kiddos, you can put the broom and the frying pan down.' Mac and Bozer hesitated, and Sir Dalton continued, putting a hand over his heart. 'I swear, on my honour as a Knight, cross my heart and hope to die.'

With another glance, Mac and Bozer lowered their makeshift weapons, and then Mac spoke.

There was powerful magic in the air. Chances were, lying was useless. Besides, Sir Dalton had sworn on his honour as a Knight.

'Sir Dalton, I'm Angus MacGyver, commonly known as MacGyver, an apprentice blacksmith. These are my friends, Wilt Bozer, known as Bozer, a tailor, and Riley Davis.'

Technically speaking, the only person who could revoke his apprenticeship was Pena, who hadn't before he'd been killed, so technically, Mac _was_ still an apprentice blacksmith.

Sir Dalton grinned at them again.

'Call me Jack, Sir Dalton was my dad. Now come on, MacGyver, Bozer, Riley…' He motioned towards the door of the stable, saw the three of them hesitate. 'What, you weren't thinking of spending the night here, were you? With the weather like this?' He put effort into making that light, with levity, snorting with disbelief and making a _pshaw_ sound, hoping he was being reassuring, even as his heart ached a little more for these three almost-kids. 'Come on, the castle awaits!'

Mac, Bozer and Riley exchanged another glance, hesitating for another moment, before they gathered their meagre possessions, put on their leaf hats and cloaks again, and followed Jack towards the castle.

* * *

'…we'll get you to the infirmary first, have you all checked over by our healer, and then we'll see about putting together a late dinner for you and finding you a place to sleep. How's that sound, kiddos?'

Mac, Bozer and Riley followed Jack through the castle, a little wide-eyed (the castle's huge doors had opened automatically as they'd neared, the torches on the walls lit themselves automatically as they walked through the corridors, then put themselves out when they became unnecessary…). Mac replied, since Bozer was muttering about how this was just like those stories he loved to read (and write), and Riley seemed a little lost for words (he supposed he would be too if he had magic; after a whole lifetime of suffering persecution, seeing it used so casually, treated like it was normal by Jack, really had to be something…), and he seemed to have been designated group spokesperson and leader anyway.

'That would be great, Sir…sorry, Jack, thank you.'

The Knight gave a nonchalant shrug that Mac suspected wasn't really nonchalant.

'Eh, just following orders, doing as my lady's wishes and all.' He snorted. 'Besides, if you didn't get dry and warm and fed, and she didn't get to properly look after that cut of yours, our healer would be furious, and trust me, brother, that's really something. You don't wanna get on her bad side.' They got to the end of the corridor, and reached an open door. 'And we're here.' Jack walked in through the door, into what was presumably the infirmary, where they found a petite, pretty, sweet-looking girl, with light brown hair in a neat braid, wearing a simple grey dress and an apron. She couldn't have been any older than fifteen or sixteen. Jack gestured between her, Mac, Bozer and Riley. 'MacGyver, Bozer, Riley, this is our healer, Bethany Taylor.'

 _This castle is full of surprises._

* * *

AN: I maintain that Jack is really a big softy under the whole tough-guy, badass former Delta/CIA agent (or, in this case, Knight of the Realm) stuff! And yes, there's quite a bit of foreshadowing in this chapter…including a little bit of foreshadowing that might seem a lot less obvious…anyone spot it? Hint: the little scene with the fight with the man-at-arms and the stable scene are the relevant scenes…

Thoughts on 2.14, Mardi Gras Beads + Chair: I really enjoyed that episode! I'm glad that Bozer and Leanna's thing came to a head, and that Riley rightly pointed out how stupid an idea it was. As someone who does ship Bozer/Riley (after some apologies on Bozer's part and a proper no-expectations friendship and some time for Riley to sort out her somewhat-complicated feelings about him, a la what is – possibly, anyway; they may have just decided on just-friends, I think – happening in canon), I really liked the way they interacted in that episode – it was very them, I think, with Bozer's silly but genuinely heartfelt lines and Riley giving him no quarter, but deciding to help him in the end. I feel so sorry for Jack, with what happened with Dawn, but oh my…it was funny and it was so going to happen and seriously, Mac, Jack, your weakness for women is going to get you two into really deep trouble one day…


	3. Chapter 3

Several minutes later, Mac was sitting on the edge of an examination table, the makeshift bandage and the remnants of his sleeve removed. His wound had been carefully examined, gently and efficiently cleaned, and then a salve had been applied to it to dull the pain, the young (very young) healer had said, before she stitched the wound.

He watched her, curious, as she prepared a needle and thread. He'd seen healers work, and he'd read a little of their art in his grandfather's books.

She seemed very, very good, in spite of being so _young._

Not that he thought that was a bad thing. He didn't think it was unnatural, or meant she had to be witch. Even if she was, which he doubted (if she was, she'd surely use magic to do things like thread a needle or grab a jar of salve off one of the neatly-ordered shelves), it wasn't as if that was a bad thing either.

(The suspicions, the rumours, that'd followed him, hadn't only been because of the strange things he could do, the strange things he could build, the fact that the got excited by weird things. It'd also been because he was, apparently, far too good at things he shouldn't be, for his age – too good at mathematics at school, too quick at reading, too talented a smith for his stage of apprenticeship…)

(After having gone through all that, plus with how his grandfather had raised him, he could _never_ think it was a bad thing.)

Bozer and Riley emerged from behind the screens they'd been firmly ordered behind, to change into dry clothing, _immediately,_ by the healer, after she'd visually inspected them for signs of injury or illness. Both of them wore clean, dry clothing, a shirt and pants for Bozer, a dress for Riley, all simple, unadorned, loose clothing, meant for sleeping.

Immediately after, Jack poked his head back around the doorframe and addressed the healer.

'Cage put together some dinner for 'em, Beth, I set it out next door, are Bozer and Riley good to go eat?'

She looked up, inspected Bozer and Riley once more, then nodded, and Jack motioned to the two of them to follow him with a little movement of his head.

Both of his friends glanced over at Mac, not wanting to leave him alone in this strange place, but he nodded, and after another moment, Bozer and Riley followed Jack out the door.

* * *

As she finished stitching his arm with small, neat, even stitches, Mac glanced down at the healer.

'You're very good, Mistress Bethany.'

The proper form of address for a healer, at least in his experience and from what he'd read in books, was Master or Mistress Healer, if one didn't know their name or wanted to use a more formal form of address, Master or Mistress whatever-their-name-was otherwise.

He supposed that he was a guest and he was in a fancy castle and if she was the castle healer, she was probably far fancier and more proper than any town healer, but to Mac, it just felt deeply weird to call a girl who was surely younger than him, no matter how skilled she was, Mistress Healer.

And he really wasn't one for societal conventions anyway.

She snipped off the thread, looked up at him, smiling, and shook her head with a laugh.

'Call me Beth, please.' She picked up a neatly-rolled bandage, and another jar of salve, which she proceeded to smear on his forearm. 'This is to prevent infection.' She paused for a moment, then continued, a bit hesitantly. 'And…for my age?'

Mac shook his head as she bandaged his arm, smiling.

'That just makes your skill even more impressive. And call me Mac.' He paused for a moment, hesitating. 'This…this is probably rude, please forgive me, but…how old are you?'

She smiled wryly.

'I'll forgive it, coming from you, since...' She turned away to grab some vials from one of the shelves, and while he couldn't see her face, Mac swore there was something a little sad in her voice, though he couldn't fathom _why_. '…we're probably more-or-less the same age; I'm almost seventeen.'

His smile widened.

'I turned seventeen a few weeks ago.'

She smiled as she turned away from the shelves, poured a mug of water from a jug on another, smaller table, then held out the three vials she'd plucked from the shelves to him, followed by the mug.

'The first one is to fight infection, and the second is for the blood loss, and the third is a painkiller.' He gulped them down, making a face (medicines, universally, tasted awful), which got him a sympathetic, slightly amused smile as he downed the mug of water. 'Unfortunately, my mother and I haven't found a way to make them taste better, I'm afraid…' Still swallowing the last of the water, Mac could only shoot her a questioning look. 'My mother is the castle apothecary.'

 _Well, that goes quite a way towards explaining her skill, given her age…_

She pulled a clean shirt and trousers from a basket on the same table as the water jug, identical to the ones that Bozer had been wearing, and helped him change his shirt, efficient but gentle and utterly unbothered by his brief half-nakedness.

Then, she held up the pants.

'Do you need help with your trousers, or can you manage on your own?'

He reached out with his right arm and took the pants from her.

'I'll…I'll be fine.'

He could definitely manage the pants. It was only a cut (albeit a rather deep and long one) on his left forearm, after all.

Besides, she might be completely unbothered by him being half-naked in her presence (he supposed that there was no reason she should be; she was a healer, her profession necessitated dealing with people in various states of undress), but he really, really did not want to be pants-less in _anyone's_ presence, let alone a pretty girl about his age, even if she was a healer.

She simply nodded and moved one of the folding screens that Bozer and Riley had changed behind to give him some privacy.

'Call if you need help, Mac.'

* * *

A couple of minutes later, Mac stepped out from behind the screen, and found Beth examining one of the makeshift leaf-hats. The look on her face was inquisitive, and impressed, even, and he couldn't help but speak.

'The wax layer on the upper side of leaves is water-repellent, so I thought I'd give it a try…' He gestured at the hat, then held up his soaked-through trousers, expression wry. '...but I don't think it was very effective.'

She startled a little when he started speaking, cheeks pinking a bit, sheepish at being caught, then glanced between him and the discarded makeshift hats and over-cloaks.

'You made these?'

Definitely impressed, a voice in his head that sounded much like his grandfather, and also a bit like Bozer, pointed out.

Mac ignored the voice as best as he could, and nodded with a smile.

'Yeah.'

'Can I keep one, just to have a look?'

She sounded a little hesitant, shy, but also eager and curious, which made Mac's smile widen. He got that feeling.

'Of course.' His smile grew more wry. 'I don't think I'll be using them again; they're really not that effective.' He gestured at the window, which was absolutely covered in raindrops, water visibly pouring down from the roof as the gutters overflowed, as there was another flash of lightning. 'Definitely not in this weather.' She smiled wryly in response, and then he remembered his manners. 'And thank you, Beth.'

She shook her head, a soft smile on her face.

'Just doing my job, Mac.' She gestured to the door. 'We need to get some food into you…'

* * *

Mac, Bozer and Riley sat in the little chamber next to the infirmary, eating heartily and enthusiastically, too focused on eating to talk.

Jack, sipping from a flask of beer (Cage had brought it up with the food and drink for the teens and handed it to him wordlessly), was reminded of his own teen years, when he could eat just about anyone out of house and home. Simultaneously, his heart clenched again.

Clearly, the three had been very, very hungry, likely hadn't eaten well for a couple of weeks.

In fact, he suspected, despite the fact that they both seemed naturally leanly-built, Mac hadn't eaten well for a few weeks, and Riley might not have eaten well regularly for years.

Beth certainly thought so, given that she'd looked in to inspect the amount of food they'd been provided, then pulled Jack aside to instruct him to inform her if any of them ate too much too quickly or too soon and made themselves throw up. And Cage certainly seemed to think so, if the quantity of food she'd prepared for them was any indication, and Jack had long ago learned that Cage very rarely did things without reason.

Bozer seized the bread basket, and started buttering slices of bread. He handed two to Riley, then three to Mac, before taking a slice for himself, stuffing half of it into his mouth in one go, picking up another slice as he chewed.

* * *

Mac, Bozer and Riley, stomachs full for the first time in two weeks, stood in the corridor, in front of three adjacent bedchambers that Jack had led them to and informed them were theirs.

The blonde held up the little wooden whistle he'd whittled two weeks ago, one of three identical ones.

'Keep yours accessible, in case.'

Bozer and Riley nodded.

They were, understandably, sensibly, wary.

But they also, somehow, felt quite safe here in this mysterious castle.

There was magic here, powerful magic, the sort of magic that was found in the legends that Riley's mom had told her when she was a girl, or in the books that Mac's grandfather used to let Mac and Bozer read in secret.

And there was something in Jack's eyes, on his face, even in the way he stood, that made them feel protected, even though it was also clear to them that the older man was very, very dangerous.

And Mac couldn't imagine Beth having anything but good intentions. She was a healer, and he really couldn't imagine a kind, pretty girl with a smile like hers being evil…he cut himself off there and kicked himself mentally.

 _You've been taken in and fooled by a pretty face before, MacGyver. Get a grip on yourself._

Mac pocketed his whistle again, and headed for one of the doors, the one that Jack had said was his.

'Good night, guys.'

'Night, bro.'

'Goodnight, Mac.'

* * *

Mac had had every intention of going to sleep. He was _exhausted._

But his attention was first caught by the clock on the table by the bed (clocks were very expensive, so it was definitely strange to find a clock in a guest bedchamber), then by the small stack of books resting on the desk by the window.

He recognized one of the titles. It was a book about engineering, written by a preeminent member of the Order of Engineers, about 215 years ago. His grandfather had had a precious, secret copy, which Mac had read cover-to-cover until he knew every word, and there was another book in the stack by the same author, and also another title that he recalled his grandfather mentioning as one of the best books on engineering he'd ever read, though he didn't have a copy; the one he'd read had been destroyed when his mentor had been killed.

Mac ran a hand reverently over the spines of the books, suddenly not tired, filled with that slightly-manic energy he had sometimes, when he was seized with an idea, with inspiration.

It wasn't _that_ late, and besides, it probably wasn't a good idea to sleep in a mysterious and magical castle full of strangers…

He picked up the topmost book (the one that his grandfather had sworn was one of the best), kicked off his boots, and sat down on the bed, opening the book as he tugged the covers over his legs and leaned against the bedhead.

* * *

Mac woke up the next morning to sunlight streaming through the window. He glanced over at the clock, and found that it was 10 am. The book was open to the 198th page, resting on the bed beside him. Thankfully, there were no bent pages, and he hadn't drooled all over it or something like that. He rubbed his neck; it was a bit sore as he'd fallen asleep in an awkward position.

He was just getting out of bed, intending to go check on Bozer and Riley, when there was a knock on the door, and Beth's voice rang out.

'Mac? Good morning, I'm sorry if I've woken you, but you need to take another dose of medicine…'

He opened the door, revealing Beth, carrying a basket containing clothes and holding a mug of water, dressed much like she'd been the night before.

Mac found himself herded back into his room. He sat down on the edge of his bed, as it was the nearest surface suitable for sitting on, as the healer handed him three vials, identical to the ones from the night before, and the mug of water, raising her brows expectantly at him.

He sighed and shook his head, but obediently downed his medicine, followed by the mug of water.

Beth unwound the bandage on his arm, inspected the wound carefully, then re-dressed it with a fresh bandage.

'You'll need to be careful and take it easy for the next few days.' She looked up from her work and narrowed her eyes at him. 'I have a feeling that you are a terrible patient, so I'm warning you, if you don't take care of yourself, I will firstly make you do so, and secondly, you will face my wrath.' She narrowed her eyes further, tilting her chin up slightly. 'It's terrifying.'

 _You know, despite her entirely unthreatening appearance, I'm going to take that seriously._

 _A, there's what Jack said about her last night, and even though I'm about as sure as I can be that Jack loves to kid around and joke, I'm also pretty sure he was serious._

 _B, I just have a feeling that I really want to stay on her good side, though I'm not sure why._

 _And C, well, this travelling bard that my grandfather once knew gave him a poem inspired by my grandmother. The most memorable line?_

' _And though she be but little, she is fierce.'_

 _I never knew my grandmother, but my grandfather swore up and down that it was very apt._

 _I see no reason why that principle can't apply to Beth too._

Mac raised his hands.

'I'll do my best to take care of myself, I promise, Beth.'

That made her give a little smile, and as she turned to pick up the contents of the basket, her eyes caught on the book, still lying open on his bed. She tilted her head a little to the left and turned back to him.

'Are you a fan of Tesla's work?'

There was something in her voice that suggested that she was very much a fan of Tesla's work. He smiled, lifting a shoulder.

'Well, I'm only 198 pages in, but so far, _definitely_.'

Her smile widened.

'Trust me, it gets even better.' Mac raised his brows, glancing back at the book, as she pulled a pair of trousers and a slightly-unusual shirt out of the basket. The shirt had buttons all the way down the front, so opened up completely. 'These should fit you, and you should be able to put on the shirt yourself…'

* * *

After getting changed (on his own this time – his nightshirt was loose enough that he could remove it essentially one-handed, and Beth had been very right about the shirt with buttons all down the front), Mac stepped out of his bedchamber, and found Bozer and Riley standing in the corridor, a little awkwardly, as Bozer was just staring at Riley, somewhat bug-eyed, while Riley ignored him.

(Mac attributed that to the fact that Riley was wearing a dress – a nice, deep-maroon one to boot – aside from the loose nightdress from the night before, they'd only ever seen her in a shirt and trousers, dressed like a boy.)

He was saved from having to think of something to try to defuse the awkwardness (which would quite likely make it even more awkward; he wasn't very good at these things), as Jack strode down the corridor with a grin.

'Morning, sleepyheads!' He motioned to them to follow him. 'You missed breakfast, but we set aside some grub for you…'

He led them into a little nook, furnished with a table and a few chairs, just down the corridor from their rooms.

There was also a sizeable breakfast spread on the table.

Jack seized the pitcher of coffee, and poured himself a mug, stirring sugar and milk into the beverage, plopping down into one of the seats, as the three teens, reassured and made more comfortable by his extremely casual manner, sat down and helped themselves to the food.

* * *

Jack waited until the three teenagers had eaten a good amount of food before he spoke, deliberately casually.

His sleep had been pretty poor the night before. Cage had said that they'd seen a lot of tragedy, that they had no family save each other, that they had nowhere to go, and that was a very, very sobering thought.

Jack had suffered plenty. He'd loved and lost a couple of times, and there was the whole being-cursed thing, but he still had quite a good-sized family, even if he didn't share blood with any of them, and he still had a home, even if it was a cursed castle in the woods, so he was pretty sure that these three had suffered a lot more.

'So, how do three young 'uns wind up in the middle of nowhere without enough to eat and seeking refuge in a mysterious, magical and possibly-dangerous castle in the woods?'

Mac, Bozer and Riley all exchanged a glance, silent for a moment, an unspoken conversation passing between them, before Mac put down his half-eaten piece of toast and spoke.

'Well, it's a really long story, but I guess it mostly started two weeks ago, the night before I was going to be burnt at the stake…'

* * *

Jack shook his head sadly as Riley finished off the last of their story.

He'd known that it would be bad, knew that they had to be orphans, had to have been driven out of their homes somehow, and he'd suspected, strongly, _why_ , since Riley had magic and Mac skill that the masses would mistake for magic, but it was just that little bit worse, hearing it from them.

'I'm sorry.' He paused for a moment, then continued. 'The lady of the castle's decreed that you can stay as long as you like.'

Their eyes widened a little in disbelief, then they all nodded gratefully.

'That's…'

'Thanks, Jack.'

'And please tell the lady of the castle thank you too, on our behalf.'

Jack nodded, a smile that looked rather fond appearing on his face.

'I'll pass that on to Patty for you.' He sipped his coffee, then pointed at the three. 'When you're done eating, go ahead and explore, if you want. Just two rules.' He took another sip of coffee, expression serious. 'One, you can go through any door that'll open under your touch, but no trying to get through any locked ones, okay?' They all nodded in acceptance, and Mac told himself very firmly that there would be absolutely no picking of locks, no matter how curious he was about what was on the other side of a door or how much he wanted to test his lock-picking skills against _magical_ locks. That would be extremely rude, a very poor way to repay the castle's lady and inhabitants for their hospitality, and he couldn't risk getting himself and Bozer and Riley thrown out. Jack's expression became more wry, and he pointed at Mac specifically. 'And you, brother, have got to take it easy, alright? No over-exerting yourself, or you ain't gonna like the consequences Beth will make you suffer.'

Mac nodded, picking up his piece of toast again, a distinct feeling that Jack wouldn't be happy with him either if he over-exerted himself either.

* * *

AN: Sorry, you're going to have to wait a little longer for Mac, Bozer and Riley to meet the rest of the castle inhabitants! (It's just three days!)

Any guesses as to who the 'travelling bard' is? :P


	4. Chapter 4

After their late breakfast, they packed up the dishes, not really knowing what to do with them, and walked through the castle, past a Great Hall for feasts and balls, which led out onto a rich garden that seemed to stretch on for at least an acre, containing decorative flowering plants, and a market garden with fruits and vegetables, and what looked to be a healer's garden. That last garden was being tended to by a petite woman who looked to be in her forties, wearing a simple, old-fashioned dress and a floppy straw hat. She also looked quite a bit like Beth, and Mac assumed that she had to be the healer's apothecary mother.

She smiled at them and waved in greeting.

'Hello, I'm Caitlyn. You've all met my daughter.' The apothecary gestured to the dishes they were carrying. 'If you're looking for the kitchen, go back inside and down the left corridor, it's on your right, next to the painting of a flying bowl of fruit.'

 _Well, a flying bowl of fruit would be distinctive, at least…_

They nodded, and Mac spoke.

'Thank you, ma'am.'

Caitlyn shook her head, and when she spoke, there was something stern in her voice.

' _Caitlyn_ , MacGyver.'

 _You know, I think I know where Beth gets it from._

* * *

Bozer, who was washing, handed Riley, who was drying, the last plate. When it was dry, she passed it to Mac, who put it away.

(They'd decided he was the best for putting things away; since he was the tallest, he could reach the high shelves the easiest. Riley could have levitated the dishes into place, but she was reluctant to risk breaking them, since she couldn't always get her magic to do exactly what she wanted it to.)

Mac's best friend towelled off his hands, and looked rather longingly at the stove, at the pantry full of produce, at the huge selection of pots and pans.

He'd never seen such a kitchen, and he really, really wanted to use it.

After all, since they'd had access to the kitchen, surely no-one would mind if he put together some food for whoever wanted any, there was plenty here; the castle was clearly not short of wealth or food. Besides, he planned to make tomato soup, using Mac's grandfather's secret recipe, and cheesy buns.

Nobody could eat his cheesy buns and not fall in love with them.

They were _that_ good.

Especially when accompanied by tomato soup.

Mac smiled fondly at his best friend.

'Do you want help, Boze, or…'

Bozer made a shooing motion, knowing that his best friend's curiosity was itching to be sated.

'Go, explore, don't do anything I wouldn't do, bro!' Mac grinned and headed out of the kitchen, though not before patting his pocket pointedly, where his very high-pitched and very loud whistle sat. Bozer turned to Riley. 'So, Miss Davis, let me show you how I do _my_ magic!' Bozer waggled his eyebrows. 'They do say that the way to the heart is through the stomach…and you'll _love_ my cheesy buns.'

Riley crossed her arms and shot him a _look_ , shifting her weight to one leg.

'I'm going to go get some fresh air.'

And she strode out of the kitchen, leaving Bozer wondering what in the world he was doing wrong.

Step one of trying to court a girl was flirting with her, and that was what he was doing, right?

* * *

Mac walked through the castle, without any particular aim (though he found himself with a couple of wishes – it'd be great to stumble across the library, for example), until he came across a little courtyard, clearly designated for doing laundry.

There were several lines for hanging wet clothes across one end, and in the middle, there was a fire-pit with a large cauldron on it. A tub of cold water sat on a platform beside the fire-pit.

The fire-pit was lit and standing beside it was Beth, a large basket of laundry on her hip.

She smiled and waved at him.

'Hello, Mac.' She put a hand over the cauldron of water, judged it was hot enough, and started dropping pieces of laundry in. Mac recognized his, Bozer and Riley's clothes (well, at least his trousers – his shirt was definitely beyond repair). She glanced over at him, smile turning wry. 'There's nothing interesting to see here.'

 _Yeah, laundry isn't very interesting to do, let alone watch, but…_

His eyes fell on the washboard and the sturdy pole for stirring the laundry lying against the castle wall, as Beth put soap and a vial of pleasant, fresh-smelling liquid into the wash.

 _You know, it'd make her life much easier if those two were combined…_

Mac walked over and reached out for the washboard, only to stop in his tracks when Beth spoke.

'Mac…'

There was a note of warning in her tone. He looked up to find her narrowing her eyes at him. He smiled a little sheepishly, holding up his hands.

'I just want to attach your washboard to the laundry stick; it'll make it much easier for you, there's no heavy lifting involved…'

Her expression softened a little, and she walked over and picked up the washboard, and gestured to the laundry stick.

'Where do you want them?'

Her tone brooked absolutely no argument. Mac's smile widened a little.

'Washboard on the floor, if you could hold the pole normal to it…uh…that's ninety degrees to…'

He trailed off as he realized that she definitely knew the not-so-normal meaning of normal (of course she did, she'd read Tesla…), then started pulling out one of his shoelaces.

* * *

A few minutes later, Mac pulled out his Engineer's knife, to put the finishing touches on the new laundry-washing aid.

He was usually very, very careful who he used the knife in front of.

(As one of the two signatures of the Order of Engineers, it invited far too much suspicion, possibly even outright hostility.)

However, this time, he didn't really think before using it at all, feeling, somehow, safe and secure.

Still, he froze the moment Beth spoke.

'Mac, do you know that that is?'

She sounded eager, almost excited, though, not wary or hostile in the slightest, and he turned his head to face her, seeing that eagerness reflected on her face.

He couldn't help but answer truthfully.

'An Engineer's knife. My grandfather's.'

Her eyes widened, that eager excitement and curiosity growing stronger.

'Your grandfather was an Engineer?'

Mac lifted a shoulder and shrugged.

'Sort-of? The Order was gone by the time he started his training, but he was taught by a man who'd been part of the Order…'

That man had thought he was the last of the Order, the last survivor, and thus, when he'd passed, Mac's grandfather had been convinced that he was the last of the Engineers.

There was something a little sad in her eyes again, just for a moment, when she shook her head.

'The Order of Engineers isn't gone, Mac. My dad's an Engineer.' She glanced between him, still with the knife in his hand, and the contraption he'd made. 'And I think you really, really need to meet him.'

He finally found his voice again, the shock passing a little, and spoke, just as eager and excited as she was.

'Can I?'

She smiled, easy and broad.

'I think I have to insist you do, or he won't forgive me!' She glanced down at his boots. 'We'll get you a new shoelace, and then I'll take you to his workshop.'

* * *

Mac could only marvel at the wonders around him, the bits and bobs and offcuts and the contraptions and devices that some of them had become that dotted the large space adjoining the smithy a little ways from the castle, in a separate building.

It was pretty much his idea of heaven.

A real Engineer's workshop, the likes of which he'd only ever read about.

'Dad? Come meet MacGyver; you have to show him your…'

Beth led him through the slightly-maze-like, cluttered shelves of the workshop, until they reached what seemed to be the centre, voice trailing off when they arrived.

There was a lean man of about Bozer's height sitting on a stool in front of a table, a metal mask on his face with a glass plate over his eyes, which were full of focus, holding a miniature flamethrower in gloved hands and using it to fix two pieces of metal together on something half-built that Mac was quite sure was a _flying machine._

He was also wearing the distinctive brown leather coat of the Order of Engineers. Mac's grandfather had had one, which he'd inherited from his mentor, though he couldn't wear it for obvious reasons.

His grandfather had gifted it to him with the knife, but he'd outgrown the coat a couple of years ago anyway, and couldn't wear it in front of the mirror and pretend and wish anymore, like he had when he was younger. It'd been left in what had once been his home back in his and Bozer's old town, and had probably been destroyed.

Mac pushed away that sadness.

There was no use crying over spilt milk, as his grandfather used to say.

Beth's dad turned off his flamethrower, put it down, and lifted his mask, greeting his daughter.

Mac didn't pay much attention, as he was far too entranced by the flying-machine-in-progress, staring at it in wonderment and awe.

After a long moment, he shook himself out of it, realizing that he was being very awkward and also a little rude (it was so awesome, so incredible, he hadn't been able to help himself at all…), only to find that Beth and her father were both smiling at him, something very understanding in their eyes.

It was the Engineer who spoke.

'I'm Michael, MacGyver.' He gestured to his creation, hints of almost-childlike excitement appearing in his eyes. 'I'm told you'd be interested in my flying machine?'

Mac just grinned, nodding as his eyes brightened with excitement and curiosity, making him look even younger.

Michael's own smile widened, softening, and he started explaining his contraption to the pair of bright-eyed teens.

* * *

Riley strode through the castle, a tornado of thoughts running through her head.

On one hand, she did like Bozer. He was a good person, loyal and caring and funny, who always sought to look after his friends as best as he could, in any way that he could.

He was a really good friend.

She liked being friends with Bozer.

And if she was honest with herself, he was kind of cute, too.

When he wasn't flirting outrageously (and badly) with her anyway.

On the other hand, well, she couldn't stand the constant flirting, the constant pushing.

She shook her head in frustration and kept walking, seeking out that fresh air she wanted, and found herself in a large courtyard.

The courtyard itself was fairly normal.

What _wasn't_ normal was the fact that there were many objects (mugs, goblets, a few pitchers, a couple of bottles of wine, four candelabras and a clock, even) flying around the courtyard above her head in an intricate pattern, even as fire and water danced around them in even more intricate twists.

Magic.

And such a display of it, too, raw power honed to a sharp, fine point. Strength with finesse.

Riley glanced between the two young, blonde women (they were about nineteen or twenty, she thought, a couple of years older than her), standing on either end of the courtyard, faces focused.

The objects all set themselves gracefully on the ground, the fire and water disappearing, as both women turned to Riley.

The sweet-faced blonde in a dress smiled widely, if shyly, and waved at Riley in greeting, while her slimmer, stunningly-beautiful companion, who was wearing a tunic and trousers, greeted her with a smaller, knowing smile, speaking.

'Hello, Riley. I'm Cage, the Spymaster's apprentice.' She gestured to the other blonde. 'This is Jill, our lady's maid.' Her smile widened ever-so-slightly, growing slightly more knowing as it did so, too. 'We were just training.' She plucked the question that was on the tip of Riley's tongue from her before she could even ask it (the question that she so desperately wanted to ask, yet so didn't want to either, still full of fierce independence, a near-need to do everything for herself, by herself, as she only really had herself – though that wasn't really true anymore, was it?), and answered it, and Riley knew then that Cage had learned how to harness her magic to read hearts and minds, and was a very, very powerful practitioner of that craft. Part of her instantly wanted to ask the older girl to teach her (it would be so, so useful…), the other part didn't want to be able to, and still a third part wondered if she had enough magic in her to learn. Cage looked at her for a moment, gaze evaluative. A pair of cups and a pitcher levitated themselves closer to Riley, and that little, knowing smile reappeared on the Spymaster's apprentice's face. 'Let's start with something more basic.'

* * *

Cage watched as Riley used her magic to pour water from a pitcher to a goblet, twenty feet in the air, guided by Jill.

The teenager learned fast, very fast.

And was very, very powerful.

More powerful than she knew, definitely.

Stronger than Jill, and stronger than Cage herself.

Quite possibly as powerful as the Queen, the strongest witch Cage had ever encountered.

This was something she definitely had to discuss with Matty, and the Queen.

Her lips quirked up a little as Riley's control slipped a little, the pitcher over-balancing, tipping water all over the courtyard floor, narrowly missing Riley herself, then spoke as the girl made a frustrated noise.

'Almost. Take a deep breath, Riley, and try again.'

* * *

'What are you doing, Bozer?'

Bozer, who'd just set down a tray of cheesy buns on the kitchen counter, jumped about a foot into the air and yelped.

He whirled around to find a very short woman with her hands on her hips standing behind him, brows raised.

Feeling rather like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, even though he was pretty sure he was doing nothing wrong (she was _terrifying…_ and she somehow knew who he was), Bozer put his hands up.

'Uh…making tomato soup and cheesy buns?'

The diminutive woman stared him down as they had an impromptu staring contest.

Bozer blinked first, and she gave a little almost-smirk, then marched around him and grabbed a warm cheesy bun.

She took a bite, chewed, swallowed and _beamed_ up at him.

'These are _amazing_.' She pointed at him with the cheesy bun in her hand. 'I'm Matty, the Spymaster.' She took another bite of the cheesy bun, chewed and swallowed. 'I like you.'

With that, she grabbed another cheesy bun, and strode out of the kitchen, leaving a rather confused Bozer behind, blinking.

'Uh…thank you?'

Well, everyone _did_ love his cheesy buns.

* * *

'…Wait, you met Matty the Hun and she said she _likes_ you?'

Sitting at the very long dinner table, Jack gaped at Bozer.

Dinner at the castle, like all meals, was a reasonably casual affair, apparently. There was a roster that determined whose turn it was to prepare meals or do the dishes after (Bozer had sort-of screwed it up by hijacking the kitchen, though, given what he'd made, Mac really didn't think anyone would be complaining) and everyone showed up at roughly the appointed time and sat wherever. Currently, only Beth and her parents were there with Jack, Mac, Riley and Bozer. Matty and Cage had yet to make an appearance, and Jill had taken a tray up to her mistress, as the lady of the castle, understandably, being the lady of the castle, presumably didn't typically eat with the castle's other inhabitants, of which there weren't very many at all, which made sense, since it was in the middle of the woods and all.

Currently, Mac, Bozer and Riley sat together, recounting their days (Bozer was half in love with the kitchen, Michael had essentially insisted that Mac return to his workshop the next day so he could show him and teach him more – he seemed very glad to have someone to teach some of his craft to; apparently, despite her appreciation for their craft, Beth was no Engineer or Engineer's apprentice – and Riley had organized to train with Cage and Jill on a daily basis). Jack sat near them, his feet up on a spare chair, eagerly digging in to his dinner. Beth, Michael and Caitlyn sat a little way away, the family chatting to themselves, occasionally glancing over at the other four when they were particularly loud.

Bozer just nodded.

'Yeah?'

'She said she liked you straight after meeting you?' Jack sounded absolutely astounded. 'She's _never_ said she likes me, and I've known her for _ages_! What's your secret, man?'

Bozer smirked and sagely held up the nearest basket of cheesy buns.

'Cheesy buns, Jack. Cheesy buns. Secret Bozer family recipe. One bite and you're guaranteed to fall in love!'

The last sentence was punctuated by him waggling his eyebrows at Riley, who rolled her eyes, but took a second cheesy bun anyway, though pointedly not from the basket that Bozer was holding.

(They were really good.)

Jack, meanwhile, took a bun from the basket in Bozer's hands, and stuffed half of it into his mouth, chewed, and spoke with his mouth full, earning looks of disgust which he ignored.

'Oh, these are really, really good, Bozer!' Jack looked appreciatively at the half of a cheesy bun in his hand. 'Still, Matty the Hun tamers? You _sure_ it was her, man?'

Bozer looked incredulously at him.

Sure, he wasn't as smart as Mac (or Riley, for that matter), but you didn't need to be good at probability to know that there could really only be one very short, very scary Spymaster called Matty in a single mysterious magical castle in the woods.

At that moment, Matty strode into the room, followed by her apprentice. She walked up to them and addressed Bozer.

'Hi, Bozer.' She reached out and grabbed a cheesy bun from the basket in his hands. 'Thanks.' She then turned to Jack. 'Learn to cook, Jack, and then I might just say I like you!'

Jack looked offended.

'I can so cook!'

Matty snorted.

From the looks on Cage, Beth, Michael and Caitlyn's faces, they agreed with her.

Well, Bozer thought, that explained why Jack was never rostered onto cooking duty alone.

* * *

AN: Cheesy buns are this AU's version of grilled cheese sandwiches. The Order of Engineers' signature brown leather coat is, of course, Mac's leather jacket! Throughout this story, various 'modern day' things are going to be adapted in some way or another into this AU…including paperclips, so keep your eyes peeled! I've wanted to write something in which Mac meets Beth's parents for ages, so I indulged myself in this fic! Did you guys like my adaptation of Bozer's canon 'performance evaluation' from Matty?


	5. Chapter 5

Bozer did a double-take as he grabbed the oats from the pantry.

(He, Mac and Riley had woken up far earlier this morning, and had decided to help Cage and Jill with breakfast.)

He was positive that the wheel of cheddar in the pantry was the exact same one as had been there the day before.

(Gargantuan wheels of cheddar did not appear out of nowhere overnight. Even, he was pretty sure, in magical castles.)

However, yesterday, he'd used a sizeable wedge of it.

But today…the wheel was whole again.

Magic, he knew, but why? And _how_?

(Food-conjuring magic was supposed to be essentially impossible, right up there with immortality magic.)

* * *

After breakfast, Beth led the three of them to the library, a cavernously-sized, yet comfortable-feeling room full of bookshelves and tables and chairs.

Mac, Bozer and Riley couldn't help but stare for a moment.

None of them had ever seen so many books in their lives.

Their guide smiled, and started pointing out the sections.

'Fiction is over there, and the cookbooks are on the shelves on the far left wall. Magic books are to your right, and the engineering ones are over by that window…'

She led them through the library, picking out individual recommendations for all three of them, and as she handed him a thick tome which she'd seemed to know _exactly_ where to find, Mac's brow furrowed.

'How…' He gestured vaguely. 'How can you do this?'

She was up on a stepladder, reaching for another book, face buried in the shelves, so he couldn't see her expression, but he was positive that there was a tiny bit of sadness in her voice again.

'I've read every book in here at least four times, Mac.'

 _I estimate that there's over a thousand books in this library, and quite a lot of them are really, really thick._

 _I read really fast, but I think it'd take me a couple of decades to read every book in here four times._

 _How fast does Beth read?_

* * *

The day after they'd spent a very enjoyable morning in the library, Bozer helped Beth and Jill alter some garments to fit himself, Mac and Riley, and sew a couple of new pieces.

They sat in the solar, all three working skilfully and efficiently, albeit at markedly different rates.

(Bozer had been known for his skill and speed back in his and Mac's old town, but Jill's magic was quicker with a needle and thread than he could ever be.)

He took a quick break from sewing a shirt for himself in his usual style, eyes falling on the shirt that Beth was altering to fit his best friend.

It was 200 years out of style (not that Mac would care; he dressed like his grandfather – who was from a different day and age and had never been fashionable himself – had and could not care less), much like the clothes of all of the castle's inhabitants, actually…

That was weird.

Bozer had always thought that castles and the people who lived in them would be on the cutting edge of fashion.

* * *

The goblets rotated around in the air, each pausing below the pitcher of water to be filled, before moving on.

When all ten of the goblets were full, they and the pitcher lowered themselves to the ground gently.

Riley smiled, proud of herself.

Jill grinned and clapped, while a small smile also graced Cage's face, as she nodded.

'Good job.' Something a little more knowing and wry slipped into her smile. 'Ready for another challenge?'

Riley's smile widened.

* * *

'…Come on, Patty! You gotta come meet them; they're great kids!'

Jack gestured broadly as he lounged in his favourite armchair in the Queen's study, his feet propped up on his favourite footstool (her very expensive coffee table).

She did this every time they had visitors; usually, she took meals with the castle's inhabitants (technically her servants, but Jack knew that she thought of them as family, even though she'd never admit it) most of the time, but when they had guests, she'd disappear into her rooms and have Jill bring up a tray.

Part of it, he knew, was the practical fact that she was the Queen of the Kingdom, and they couldn't exactly admit that without having to reveal and explain the whole curse thing, and they didn't like to do that to new guests.

It tended to shock them, and they also didn't want word getting out.

If it did, things could get messy.

Thus, standard procedure was to wait until the visitors worked it out for themselves. They always did, if they stayed long enough.

Now, Jack was all for sitting Mac, Riley and Bozer down and explaining the whole situation gently (he was positive that they'd be staying long-term; they had nowhere else to go, and they were making friends with everyone, except Patty, obviously, and besides, with brains like Mac and Riley's, it couldn't be long before they puzzled it out), but he respected his lady's wishes and orders.

The rest of it…well, that was just Patty being _Patty_ , he knew. She was cool by nature, and had a hell of a lot of walls, but she really did care underneath it all, just as much as the rest of them did.

She didn't look up from the thick, leather-bound book she was reading.

'I know.'

There was too much in those two words for even Jack to tease it all out.

(Something sad, something regretful, something happy and maybe longing and so much else…)

* * *

Mac glanced between Michael and the slightly-smoking project he'd been working on that he'd just doused with a bucket of water (a few buckets were always kept on hand in strategic locations, just in case – the Engineer's wife and daughter insisted upon it).

'Sorry…'

'Don't apologize, MacGyver.' Michael smiled, both wry and reassuring. 'My mentor always said that if you don't blow something up or set something on fire at least once a fortnight during your apprenticeship, you're not doing it right.' The smile turned more sheepish. 'Uh…don't tell my daughter I said that, please; she's expressly forbidden me from formally asking you if you'd like to do an apprenticeship until you're fully recovered…'

Mac blinked, processing for a moment (a real Engineer wanted him to formally become his apprentice!), before he chuckled and nodded.

* * *

'…Most people's All Hallows Eve decorations are lame, you know, carved pumpkins just don't cut it, so one year, my cousin George and I, he's crazy, real crazy, went and dug up some old dead guy from the cemetery-'

Mac, Bozer and Riley just stared at Jack in disbelief. Bozer found his voice first and cut the older man off.

'Jack, you _dug up a dead body and stole it_?'

Jack pursed his lips and shook his head.

'Well, he'd been dead for ages, he wasn't really a _body_ anymore, he was pretty much just a collection of bones, reassembling him was a _pain_ , and we didn't _steal_ him, we put him back after…'

Mac, Bozer and Riley didn't look very reassured, the blonde speaking.

'Jack, grave robbery is a _crime_.'

Jack waved his hand dismissively.

'Eh, those laws aren't really enforced.'

That didn't have the effect he wanted. Mac, Bozer and Riley still seemed astounded and somewhat horrified.

Cage, who was sitting at the dining table a couple of seats away, reached over and took a baked potato from the bowl next to Jack, shooting him an _I-told-you-so_ look.

'I told you not to tell that story again.'

* * *

The morning that Beth declared Mac fully recovered from his injury, Jack plopped himself down in front of Mac, Bozer and Riley at the table, having strode into breakfast a little late, and pointed at all three of them after he'd had a sip of his morning coffee, expression serious.

'Meet me down at the training field by the guardhouse after you've cleaned up after breakfast for weapons training.'

' _Weapons_ training?'

Jack nodded seriously in response to Bozer's question. Very seriously.

'It's my responsibility to protect everyone in this castle. That includes you three. And the best way to protect you is to teach you to protect yourselves.'

 _Jack's logic is sound._

 _It is important that we learn to defend ourselves, and it's very good of him to teach us._

 _Still…I don't like the idea of getting blood on my hands. I don't like the idea of killing someone._

 _I understand that one might find oneself in a situation where one has to fight for one's life or the lives of others, but I also believe that there is almost always another way. That that doesn't mean kill or be killed._

 _They say that the young are too often naïve._

 _I concede that maybe I'm idealistic, but I don't think I'm all that naïve, not after what I've lived through._

Mac glanced at Bozer and Riley, saw similar thoughts to his own in his best friend's eyes, and something very guarded that he couldn't quite read in Riley's (he could guess, though, could tell she must be recalling her father's death in her mind, and he was pretty sure he saw hints of both regret and acceptance there), then turned back to Jack, who was watching Riley with concern in his eyes, and nodded.

 _There is a difference between ability and action._

 _A massive difference._

 _For example, Jack could kill any of us quite easily, I'm sure._

 _But I'm even surer that he would never, ever hurt us._

* * *

When the trio of teens arrived at the training field, Jack and Cage were sparring with a half-dozen magically-animated faceless training dummies.

They watched as Jack beheaded one of the dummies with his massive longsword, hitting a second hard in the jaw with the pommel of his sword immediately after, while Cage kicked a third dummy away from her, throwing a small knife into its chest, then stabbed another with the larger knife she held in her other hand while she pulled another throwing knife from her belt.

Once all the dummies were down (and magically repairing themselves, which was a little disconcerting to watch), Jack and Cage turned to them, Jack grinning as he sheathed his longsword, then rubbed his hands together.

'Lesson time, kiddos!'

The three of them eyed his longsword for a moment, and Cage's mind buzzed as she summoned the knives she'd buried into the dummies, putting them back into their sheaths.

Mac was very reluctant to learn swordplay, knowing how difficult it was to avoid killing or inflicting near-fatal, crippling wounds, knowing how much skill was required to wield a sword in a non-deadly manner.

Bozer felt similar, if not somewhat more viscerally, tinged with a little more experience.

Riley knew that she would not have the physical strength to wield something like Jack's sword, even if Cage also knew she'd never voice that, and she held reservations about killing too, though a little different from those of the boys. Ones that drew more on experience. Regret, rather than just deeply-held ideals, morals.

Jack, too, seemed to pick up on what direction their thoughts were taking, because he waved a hand reassuringly, putting a hand on the pommel of his sword.

'Much as I love Ol' Faithful here, I'm not a one-weapon kinda guy.' He motioned towards the nearby guardhouse. 'Let's find you guys something that speaks to you…'

* * *

Jack led them into the armoury, which was full of a huge array of weapons, which he gestured towards.

'I can teach you to fight with anything in here, so look around, find the one that gets you like Ol' Faithful gets me…'

The first part of his sentence didn't sound like idle boasting. Not at all.

(Mac was a little sceptical about finding a weapon that _got_ him – that seemed to require sentience, and even magic could not instil sentience.)

 _There are at least twenty different types of weapons in here, and then several variants of each type. Jack is a Knight of the Realm, one of the most elite warriors in Phoenix, and he's not exactly a youngster either, but still…that's a lot of weapons to have mastered._

* * *

Mac picked up one of the intriguing-looking blowdarts, about the length of his palm, with a very sharp needle and a tiny glass vial mounted on them, that were stored on a rack that he suspected was custom-built for them, bringing it carefully to his eye level and examining it.

They appeared to be expertly engineered to inject the contents of the vial into their targets. There was a little steel ball at the rear of the dart, the momentum of which would depress a plunger on impact, which would in turn force the liquid in the vial through the hollow needle and into the target.

'Mac, brother, what do you say to these?' Jack held up a longsword, slimmer and lighter than his, in his right hand, and a sturdy quarterstaff in his left. When he saw what Mac was examining, he put down the longsword and picked up a dart himself. 'They're pretty nifty little things, aren't they?' Mac just nodded, continuing to examine the blowdart's injecting mechanism. 'Beth's real good with 'em; if you resist proper medical care, she'll shoot you in the ass with one of them that's full of sedative, and you'll wake up in the infirmary getting that care…'

Jack sounded very much like he was speaking from experience.

For a moment, Mac was lost for words.

 _I know, I know, appearances can be deceiving. You shouldn't assume that someone is fragile or delicate or weak because they're small and female._

 _Not that I ever thought she was fragile or delicate or weak, though she's obviously small and female, just…well, you get what I mean._

 _A blowgun and injecting darts is a logical choice of weapon for a small girl who doesn't have physical strength or reach on her side and is a skilled healer, with an apothecary for a mother to boot._

 _And this also explains why she was so sure she could make me take care of myself if I didn't…I mean, I'm starting to think she could probably do it by sheer force of will alone, but being able to take me down with a single dart would also help._

 _Stay on her good side, MacGyver. Stay on her good side._

* * *

A little while later, Riley had a set of knives in sheaths attached to a special belt around her waist, identical to Cage's, except for the different pattern on the hilts and the different colour of the leather of the belt, and Bozer was holding a sturdy club (Mac was pretty sure his best friend had considered grabbing his frying pan and asking Jack to teach him to fight with that - Bozer was oddly attached to his frying pan – but had compromised with the closest thing to it in Jack's huge weapons arsenal), while Mac was familiarising himself with the balance of the quarterstaff that Jack had offered him.

He brought it up to chest level, carefully manoeuvring it to avoid hitting any of the weapon racks, and then, the idea hit him.

If he could create a suitable locking mechanism and combine it with the mechanism of a collapsible telescope, he could create a collapsible quarterstaff that he could wear on his belt…that would be so much more convenient.

'Jack?' The older man looked up from where he was inspecting Bozer's chosen club. 'Can I do some experiments on this?'

* * *

Two days, a very small fire, and three prototypes later, Mac unhooked his brand-new metal quarterstaff from his belt and extended it in one smooth, quick motion. He handed the staff to Jack, who took it, testing the balance, the weight, and the sturdiness. When he was done, he looked very, very impressed and handed it back to Mac with a smile, which made pride well up in the teen.

'That's some brilliant work, brother.' Jack smirked and led him out onto the training field. 'Now onto the best bit: the ass-kicking!'

* * *

Three days after Mac finished his quarterstaff, Bozer paused as he entered the pantry, then shook his head and retrieved the jar of pickles, which he'd used all of the day before.

(It'd appeared to be a bottomless jar of pickles, which he knew was impossible without food-conjuring magic, so to prove it to himself and verify he wasn't losing his marbles, he'd just used the whole lot, so he could see what would be in the jar the next day, if anything at all.)

He walked out of the small room, and held up the jar of pickles, which was decidedly not empty. In fact, it was full.

'Are we ever gonna talk about the elephant in the room or are we gonna just keep ignoring it?' Mac and Riley looked up from where they were, respectively, stirring the soup and buttering bread for sandwiches. (It was their turn to make lunch.) Bozer shook the pickle jar, then gestured to the kitchen in general for emphasis. 'The food never runs out.'

Mac stopped in his soup-stirring.

'Beth's read approximately 1400 books at least four times each.'

Riley put down the butter knife.

'And there's no way Jack can be so talented that he's mastered over twenty weapons in his lifetime.'

The three of them all shared a glance.

 _It doesn't need to be said aloud that there is something very, very strange about this castle and its inhabitants._

 _Something seemingly impossible._

 _There's only one logical conclusion._

 _If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

 _We knew there was very powerful magic here._

 _But we did not think it could be this powerful._

* * *

AN: Ooh…they've finally caught on about the curse! Will there be drama to follow? Tune in in three days to find out! ;)

Remember what I mentioned about foreshadowing in the second chapter? One of the things I tried to foreshadow (possibly unsuccessfully) was what weaponry Mac, Bozer and Riley would take up using, Mac in particular (stick/broomstick/quarterstaff).


	6. Chapter 6

AN: There was a problem the upload of the previous chapter on this site (thanks to Temporary Illusion for pointing that out to me!), which I couldn't fix (it was something wrong with the site, I think…), so you might have missed that chapter…

* * *

That evening, just before dinner, while Bozer helped Cage and Jack cook and Riley kept practicing her magic with Jill, Mac sat in an armchair by the window in the library, reading a very old and very precious engineering text by a highly-esteemed Engineer named Archimedes, who'd been one of the founders of the Order of Engineers.

Beth was sitting in the armchair opposite his, reading a book on astronomy for the sixth time. She was reading out-loud at that moment; the two of them had quickly built up a habit of reading titbits that they found particularly interesting to the other if they were both in the library at the same time, which happened reasonably often.

 _I like books._

 _Beth likes books._

 _This is where the vast majority of the books in this castle are kept._

 _Of course we both wind up here frequently, and thus, we are frequently here at the same time._

 _It's a highly-probable coincidence. Statistically inevitable._

When Beth finished reading the fascinating passage (it really was fascinating; he made a mental note to read that book after her…assuming, of course, that what he was about to say didn't change everything for the worse – he didn't think it would, all the people of the castle he'd met seemed to genuinely care for him and Riley and Bozer in their own way, he doubted they'd throw them in the dungeon, but there was definitely the matter of what the lady of the castle thought, and while she'd said they could stay as long as they liked, according to Jack, none of them had ever met her, and besides…how could one know when dealing with something that involved mysterious and powerful magic?), Mac took a deep breath and spoke.

'Beth, how old are you exactly?'

She looked up instantly from her book, that same sadness that he'd heard in her voice that very first night in the infirmary on her face, now tinged with something a little scared, fearful and worried.

(As if she was scared that he'd react badly, might lash out and yell at her, or simply turn and run and leave, he thought.)

Unlike that night in the infirmary, though, he now thought he might understand why that was the case; he had a suspicion, a strong one, that explained it all.

'Sixteen and 364 days.'

'You'll be seventeen tomorrow?'

She nodded, swallowing and looking away from him, out the window at the setting sun, that sadness and fear and worry growing clearer, stronger.

'If tomorrow ever comes.'

Mac took another deep breath, closing his book.

'How long have you been sixteen and 364 days?'

She was silent for a moment, then closed her book and looked back at him, hands toying with the fabric of her dress's skirt.

'200 years.'

 _I was right._

 _I hoped I wasn't, but I was._

* * *

It was a very, very powerful curse.

Essentially impossible, after all, didn't mean _actually_ impossible.

They didn't age. The seasons changed, but they didn't change with it. They could get sick, could be injured, though no-one had ever died, though they couldn't say if that was luck and providence, or Beth and Caitlyn's skill, or part of the curse, and they did not wish to find out.

They were trapped within the boundaries of the castle grounds, couldn't take one step out into the woods beyond, though they had the means to see out into the outside world, through magic.

(That, Mac, Bozer and Riley thought, must be horrifically painful for their new friends– the decay of the Order of Engineers, the persecution of those who had magic, the disarray that the Kingdom had fallen into, full of squabbling lords with petty disagreements with very non-petty consequences…that would have been terrible for them to have to witness, helpless, powerless to do anything.)

All consumables renewed themselves by magic in the night, so they never ran out of anything they'd had the moment the curse was set. Food, paper, fabric, ink, metal and so on were constantly supplied. The plants in the garden might wilt with the seasons, but they'd never died, not even the annuals, which were simply reborn every year.

They'd tried to break it, of course, and were still trying. Cage and Matty devoted much time to it, and the lady of the castle, who was a very, very powerful witch, did too, but to no avail.

As Beth finished explaining the last of the terms of their curse, Mac, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance, a single question on their minds, on the tips of their tongues.

It was Mac who expressed it.

'But _why_?'

Why were they cursed? Curses didn't set themselves, and such a powerful one must have had a powerful motivation behind it…

Jack shifted a little in his seat, and looked up at Mac, Bozer and Riley after taking a sip from his mug, as everyone else exchanged looks and glances.

'That ain't our story to tell.'

'It's mine.'

An unfamiliar voice sounded out from the top of the stairs that led into the dining room, which were shrouded in shadow.

The lanterns flickered on, and then a tall, slender, dark-haired woman aged in her early forties, wearing an elegant and very finely made gown, became visible, and she made her way down the stairs.

Jack looked surprised for just a moment, before he quickly recovered and gestured to the woman, as if he was presenting her before the Court.

'Queen Patricia of the Kingdom of Phoenix, the last of the Thornton line, and lady of this castle.'

Rather awkwardly, Mac, Riley and Bozer all got up and bowed, not really knowing how to properly greet a Queen, let alone in this context. As they straightened up, Mac glanced at the other two teens, then tried to say something sensible and polite.

'Uh…thank you for your kind and generous hospitality, your highness…'

Her expression was very, very hard to read, because there was almost nothing on her face, she was simply cool, calm and collected, but there might have been something that resembled a hint of a smile there.

'My lady will do fine, MacGyver, Bozer, Riley. We don't set much store by formality here.'

As if to illustrate her point, she gestured to the others around the dining table, none of whom had stood and bowed or curtseyed to her on her entrance.

 _Well, Jack does call her Patty, and she hasn't had him beheaded for his insolence yet, so…_

The Queen was silent for a moment, something inscrutable passing across her face, before she spoke again.

'200 years ago, I had a suitor who was a very powerful wizard. The only man I've ever encountered with magic stronger than my own.' Her voice was even, calm, matter-of-fact. 'I refused him, and he took it very poorly. He cursed me.' There was no emotion in her voice at that, not that Mac could hear. 'And he gave the people of my castle five minutes to make a choice: to leave the castle forever and not speak of the events, lest they suffer his wrath, or to stay and share in my curse.'

There was a note of something that Mac was sure was sadness and guilt in her eyes, in her voice, at that.

She stood there for a long moment, holding the gaze of the three teenagers, then glanced around the table, that sadness and guilt growing stronger, Mac was sure, and then, she turned and swept away, back up the stairs, without another word.

Jack looked like he wanted to follow her for a moment, before settling back into his seat and downing the rest of the beer in his mug.

Mac, Bozer and Riley exchanged another glance, then looked variously at the others around the table, an unspoken question in their eyes, one that they really wanted to ask, but were struggling to find the right way, the right words to ask, wondering if this was the right time, if there would ever be a right time or a right way.

Jack gave a very small, rather fond smile at that, then his expression grew more serious again as he spoke.

'I swore to serve my Queen, to protect her, her home and its inhabitants. I couldn't leave.'

(There was more loyalty in his voice, on his face, than one would expect solely from his words. More loyalty than one would expect from the Captain of the Queen's Guard.)

Matty nodded, making eye contact with the three teenagers.

'I made the same vows.'

Cage, sitting on the other side of her mentor, used her magic to fill Jack's mug with water, speaking as she did so.

'And so did I.'

(They were harder to read than Jack, substantially so, but Mac swore that there was more to it than simple vows of fealty for the Spymaster and her apprentice too.)

A tray of food started assembling itself, as Jill spoke up.

'Matty saved my life during the wizard's attack, so…'

She trailed off, waving a hand, and the tray of food flew up the stairs, the way the Queen had gone.

Michael reached out and took his wife's hand, the two of them exchanging a glance, before he spoke for both of them.

'We grew up in the castle with the Queen.'

Caitlyn continued.

'We played together as children.'

Mac, Bozer and Riley's eyes turned to Beth next. She was looking down at the table, hands toying with her fork, but she looked up at them when she spoke, answering the unspoken question in their eyes.

'Mom and Dad tried to convince me to leave, but…' She gave a little smile, tinged with sadness. 'I couldn't leave my family.'

The way she said it, the look she had in her eyes when she spoke, told Mac that when she said _family_ , she wasn't just referring to her parents.

Maybe 200 years ago, that was what family had meant to her.

Now, she seemed to be referring to all of the castle's inhabitants.

 _You don't need to share blood to be family._

 _I've known that since Bozer punched Donnie Sandoz in the nose for me when I was nine._

 _If I was trapped in a cursed castle for 200 years…well, I think everyone else in the castle would become my family, even if it initially seemed that I had nothing in common with them._

 _Besides, it isn't as if they had nothing in common._

 _They all made the same choice…and I think their reasons have more in common than you might think._

'Now that you know…do you want to stay?'

Mac studied Beth's face for a moment when she spoke. She sounded much like he had, in the library earlier, when he'd asked her exactly how old she was, a little hesitant, as if wondering what he was about to say would destroy that happiness, that contentment, they'd all somehow built, and he suspected that her current expression mirrored his from then.

Jack continued, voice nonchalant in a way that Mac was sure was deliberate and not truly felt.

'Not that we're kicking you out or holding your prisoner or anything like that; it's your choice. We've had visitors stay for days, we've had them stay for years, and everything in between.'

Mac, Bozer and Riley didn't even need to exchange a glance, all knowing the others' answers already.

 _We have nowhere else to go._

 _And we don't want to be anywhere else, honestly._

 _And…well, we can't just abandon our friends just because they're under a curse._

It was Riley who spoke first, voice nonchalant in the same way that Jack's had been.

'This is the only place in the kingdom where I can learn to wield my magic properly.' She crossed her arms and leaned back casually in her chair. 'Of course I'm staying.'

Mac glanced over at the Taylor family, then looked around the table, a little smile on his face.

'I gave my word I'd serve an apprenticeship. I keep my promises.'

Bozer shrugged, a grin on his face.

'Hey, we're on the cooking roster, and I couldn't deprive you all of my cheesy buns…' His expression grew more serious. 'And where my bro and Riley go, I go.' He paused for a moment, contemplating his word choice. 'Or where they stay, I stay.' He made a face. 'That doesn't have the same ring to it.'

As Bozer had intended, as he did so often, that lightened the moment, smiles and snorts of laughter and head-shakes with varying degrees of exasperation and fondness appearing around the table.

* * *

'You're lifting your shoulder too high, Bozer...Mac, watch that follow-through…Riley, loosen up your grip a touch…'

Jack paced in front of the three teenagers, who were drilling with their selected weaponry in front of wooden posts in the training yard, building up that muscle memory, those instincts that Jack knew from experience could and would save your life in a fight.

'Alright, good work! Take five!'

* * *

'…Dad, Mac, you missed lunch again!' Beth, carrying a tray holding several sandwiches, two mugs and a jug of water, as well as two apples, walked through her father's workshop. 'You know that skipping meals is bad for your health!'

She rounded the corner, and found a slightly sheepish-looking Engineer and a more sheepish-looking Engineer's apprentice, both with greasy hands. Mac had another long streak of grease on his cheek, and they had both clearly been deep in the innards of the flying machine.

Beth shook her head with a fond, slightly amused smile, put down the tray and pointed in the direction of the washbasin, raising her brows expectantly.

* * *

A series of pitchers, goblets and candelabras danced around Riley in a circle, twenty feet in the air. The goblets were filled by the pitchers, and then, after some more complicated dancing around, the candelabras suddenly lit themselves. There was more movement in a complex pattern, and then, the candelabras went out, the goblets refilled the pitchers, and all of the objects floated gently to the ground.

Mac, Bozer and Jack, who were standing on the edge of the courtyard, having run into each other in the castle grounds and walked back up to the castle together, clapped, all grinning.

'That was awesome, Riley!'

'Woohoo!'

'That's my girl!'

Riley rolled her eyes in response to Bozer's comment, and one of the pitchers flew up again, and dumped its entire ice-cold contents over him.

Bozer, cold and soaking wet, spluttered, then his grin reappeared.

'She really likes me…'

Over the top of his head, Mac and Jack exchanged a glance.

 _I am terrible with girls._

 _I'll be the first to admit that._

 _But I'm pretty sure that tipping a pitcher of ice-cold water on you is not a way that a girl expresses that she really likes you…_

* * *

Riley concentrated and held out a hand, and the cookbooks on the very top shelf that Bozer wanted to read (he was currently fetching the library ladder) floated down onto the table, just as Bozer returned, holding the ladder.

He grinned in thanks, which made Riley smile, and then, started muttering under his breath about inspiration for a love sonnet (he'd finished reading a whole book of love poems a couple of days ago), which she ignored as she perched back on the edge of the table, burying her head back into her book.

Sitting on the other end of the large table, their heads bent over an extremely large encyclopaedia, Mac and Beth continued fervently discussing reproducing the mechanics of a human hand in metal, completely oblivious to everything but the conversation, the encyclopaedia and each other.

* * *

'You're getting real handy with that real fast, brother.'

As Mac put away his quarterstaff, sliding the extendable parts back inside the centre piece, after an evening training with Jack (Bozer was on dinner duty, while Riley was practicing magic), the Knight gestured to Mac with a hand.

The blonde smiled.

'Thanks, Jack.' He shrugged. 'My dad was really good with his quarterstaff; maybe it's inheritable.'

Jack finished putting away the last of the training dummies, then glanced back over at Mac, a little smile on his face, as if he was reminiscing about his own dad.

'Did you used to watch him practice with it?'

Mac's smile softened a little, recalling a few precious memories.

'Yeah, sometimes.'

Jack studied his face for a moment, then spoke, voice as gentle as he could be.

'What happened to him, son?'

Mac took a deep breath, looking away from Jack, then back at him.

'I don't know.' He shrugged helplessly. 'One day, when I was ten, he just…left.'

Jack reached out and slung an arm around his shoulders.

'I'm sorry, son.'

Mac gave a small smile, putting his own arm around the older man's shoulders.

'Thanks, Jack.' He sighed, a somewhat bitter, somewhat resigned, somewhat helpless sound that tugged at Jack's heartstrings. 'He probably went and started a new family in another town.'

Jack did _not_ like that sound, and squeezed Mac's shoulders.

'Well, he was real handy with a staff; got any other fun facts about your dad you wanna share? Or your mom? Or your grandfather?'

Mac's smile reappeared, soft and reminiscent, as he lost himself in memories again, better, happier memories this time.

'Well, my mom made the _best_ apple pie. She had a secret recipe that she didn't even share with my grandfather, her dad…'

* * *

AN: I kinda promised you guys drama, didn't I? Well, surprise…surprisingly little drama? And Mac and Jack are growing closer…which, come on, we all have to love, right?

In other news – I don't know why, but I find myself oddly possessed by the notion of writing _MacGyver_ versions of fairytales? Yesterday, I finished writing _Give Your Heart a Chance,_ a _MacGyver_ take on _Cinderella_. It's quite different from this story, but I'm hoping that you'll like it anyway…

Here's the summary:

Angus MacGyver. Genius. Billionaire. Philanthropist. Definitely not a playboy. After one too many heartbreaks, Mac's heart is so guarded that his friends fear he'll never find the right one. Throw in a couple of coincidences, some meddling, a hard-working, brilliant, beautiful young doctor and you have a modern-day fairytale.

I'm now going to start editing it and breaking it down into chapters, it's substantially shorter than this story (about half the length), and I think I'll post it after this is done. I might move this story to updates every second day depending on how fast the editing gets done, I'm not happy with some sections yet, so they might wind up being re-written…


	7. Chapter 7

The last of the three magically-animated training dummies dropped to the floor, felled by an injecting dart in the crook of its elbow.

Beth, her blowgun in hand, dart quiver slung across her torso, waved at Mac, Bozer and Riley, who'd all been watching, from her perch eight feet up a tree by the training field, which the dummies had been trying to climb.

'Good morning!'

She put her blowgun back into the quiver, and carefully climbed down the tree.

'You're _really_ good at that.'

Mac kicked himself internally (why did he have to say something weird?), but Beth just smiled up at him, looking flattered, cheeks a little pink.

'Thank you!'

Unfortunately, Mac, still a little off-balance, just vocalized the first of the many thoughts flying around his brain that he could grab in response.

'Why did you hit Jack in the _backside_? I suppose it'd have been great for teaching him a lesson, but you can clearly hit a much smaller target…'

Mac kicked himself internally again and made himself stop talking, as Beth groaned, blushing and rubbing her forehead.

(Behind their backs, Bozer smirked knowingly and made a little _aww_ sound that only Riley heard, muttering very quietly under his breath about how his bro had come so far since Darlene Martin.)

(Riley shuddered to think how hopeless Mac must have been if Bozer thought _this_ was substantial progress.)

'He told you that story?' Mac, Bozer and Riley just nodded in confirmation when she turned a little so as to look at all three of them, and Beth sighed, looking sheepish. 'It was 198 years ago, and I was far less accurate then; I really wasn't _aiming_ for his backside…'

* * *

All the water in the pitchers, pots, cups and goblets set out around Riley in a rough circle shot upwards in streams, twisting into a ball, which spun around for a while, before, with an increase in concentration by the teenager and a change in hand motions, solidifying into a sphere of ice, with an impossibly-smooth surface.

Then, Riley's eyes widened as the sphere of ice began to shave itself into snowflakes, which fell to the ground.

She was _not_ doing that.

She whirled around, and had the privilege of seeing Cage look almost-surprised, just for the smallest of instants.

(Jill wasn't there; she was doing some chores, but Riley was pretty sure then that if the lady's maid was there, she'd have reacted far, far more, possibly with jumping and maybe even swearing.)

The Queen was standing behind her, a small, cool smile on her face that nonetheless reached her eyes.

'Good afternoon, Riley.' The snowflakes gathered themselves up into a sphere, the ball of ice re-forming. She gestured to Riley, then the ball of ice. 'Focus on the ball, not the snowflakes. See it in your mind's eye, gather your magic, and then…' The Queen made another gesture, and the snowflakes began to peel off the sphere again. When the sphere had halved in size, she turned back to the teenager. 'Your turn.'

Riley took control of the ice sphere from the Queen, looking rather surprised that she was giving her magic lessons, and Cage just smiled in a way that was almost a smirk, crossing her arms, something teasing in her eyes.

'Who do you think taught me?'

* * *

'…Oh, hi, Beth.'

Mac walked into the kitchen in search of a snack (he was a still-growing boy; he'd been here two and a half months, and the bottom hem of his trousers had already had to be let out), and found the young healer there.

 _A surprise, definitely…but not an unwelcome one._

 _Not at all._

 _Beth's good company._

She looked up from the stove, where she was stirring something that smelled _almost_ like his mother's apple pie, smiling. There were two pie crusts on the bench next to the stove.

'Oh, hello, Mac.' Her smile widened. 'I'm making my second-favourite food.'

He chuckled, grabbing a pear from the fruit bowl (she'd used all the apples).

'What's your favourite?'

'Pumpkin pie.' She narrowed her eyes at him, a mostly teasing expression. 'Pumpkin pie is delicious, and thus should be a socially-acceptable foodstuff all year round, not just during the fall!'

He held his hands up, smiling.

'No judgement here, Beth. Apple's my favourite kind of pie, but I do appreciate a good pumpkin pie.' He grabbed a stool and sat down next to the pie crusts, taking a bite of his pear and chewing and swallowing before continuing, gesturing at the stewing apples. 'Actually…my mom used to make the _best_ apple pie; she had a secret recipe, and when I was four, she promised that when I was old enough, she'd teach me.' He swallowed, looking down at his partly-eaten pear. 'But she passed away before I got old enough, so…' He looked back up at her. There was a soft, warm, sad-tinged, sympathetic look in her eyes, and a little hesitantly, she reached out and patted his forearm comfortingly. He gave a little, thankful smile in response. '…I've been trying to re-create her recipe for years.' He gestured at the apples again. 'Could I steal some of that to do some more experimenting?'

She smiled, and handed him the wooden spoon she was using to stir the apples, reaching up and going up onto her toes to grab a stack of small bowls from one of the cupboards.

'I think we can do better than that, Mac.' She handed him the small bowls, and then crouched down to grab several spice jars. 'I love experiments.' Her smile grew more wry and a tiny bit sheepish as she looked up at him, arms full of jars of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger. ' _Especially_ ones involving pie.'

Mac grinned.

 _Yeah, she's really good company._

He started spooning small amounts of the apple mixture into each of the bowls.

* * *

Riley slashed at the dummy in front of her with twin knives, then kicked the faceless 'man' away; however, the second dummy she was fighting had gotten too close while she'd been focused on its companion, and tried to grab her (they were unarmed; this was her first time sparring against two opponents, Jack knew it'd be really unwise to challenge her too much). She blasted the dummy away with her magic, and Jack realized that she was panicking somewhat; she'd blasted the dummy away far harder than he'd have expected her to.

It hit the stone wall of the armoury very, very hard, almost too fast for him to follow, and crumpled to the ground, falling into a very broken, lifeless position. Jack spoke the code phrase to turn the dummies back into lifeless dolls, just as the dummy burst into flames.

'No, no, no! I didn't want…I didn't mean…no!'

Riley frantically moved her hands, and water streamed up from the well and doused the fire on the badly burned dummy.

'No…I…Ellwood!'

To Riley, the armoury wall was the far wall of her and her mother's house. She was thirteen years old again, and the dummy, lying badly burned and broken against the wall, was her father.

(She'd never meant to kill him, hadn't wanted to, as bad as her father had been – a gambler and a thief who begged and borrowed money from his own wife and daughter, enlisted her, a mere child, to help him in his scams, and got very, very drunk and started spewing threats, and, that fateful night, had tried to really, really _hurt_ them – he was still her father, and she didn't want him dead, she'd only wanted him to get away from her mom, to stop hurting her mom, she hadn't meant it that way…)

Her eyes were distant, lost in her mind, not seeing what was in front of her, and Jack recognized that look.

He'd seen it a time or two before, in Knights and guards and soldiers and spies who'd seen traumatic events.

Sometimes, they lost themselves in their memories, and it was like they were back there in whatever situation had caused that trauma again.

Without even thinking about it, Jack unbuckled his weapons belt, and discarded it, then stepped closer to Riley, keeping his hands up, speaking in the most gentle, soothing voice he could.

'Riley? Riles? Ri, hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're safe…you're in that big magical cursed castle, here in the training yard with Jack and Ol' Faithful, ain't nobody's gonna hurt you, Riles…'

When he was just a few feet away from her, she snapped out of it, with a sudden, shuddering breath, eyes widening a little as she took in the destroyed dummy, and Jack approaching her as if she was a skittish horse.

Suddenly, all Riley wanted was a hug. A hug just like her mom had given her that day, when she had held her tight, rubbed her back, warm and reassuring, and told her everything was going to be okay.

Nobody had hugged Riley since that day (she hadn't had family again until she'd shown up in Mac's prison cell, and she didn't exactly give off touchy-feely vibes, after all).

So, entirely on impulse (because he was big and solid and looked like he gave great hugs, and most importantly, Jack made her feel _safe_ because she knew he _cared_ , truly, really _cared…_ and maybe he reminded Riley of the man she'd wished and dreamed could have been her father instead, when she was a little girl, which she would never, ever admit to anyone – it was never that her mom hadn't been enough, _never_ , Riley had simply wanted maximum security and safety and happiness for her mom, had wished that her mom wouldn't need to work herself to the bone to provide or that she wouldn't, sometimes, look sad and lonely or have to angrily throw Ellwood out), Riley reached out and threw her arms around him, burying her face and teary eyes into his chest.

Jack started, surprised for a moment, before he raised his arms and hugged her back, holding her tight, rubbing her back, warm and reassuring.

'You're okay, Riles, you're okay…'

* * *

'…And if that asshole weren't already dead, Patty, I swear, I'd find a way to rough him up real good myself, curse or no curse.' Jack, after listening to Riley's story, comforting her as best as he could, and then spending the rest of the afternoon and evening cheering her up (as subtly and nonchalantly as he could; he knew Riley wouldn't appreciate anything obvious), bringing Mac, Bozer, Beth and even Cage into it, plus starting a silly little argument with Matty, just to try and amuse her, was now letting his temper run wild, pacing around the Queen's study and ranting. 'Get Mac and Bozer in on it, send them out to kidnap the SOB, bring him back here, scare the shit out of him…'

The Queen listened, simply waited for the fire to burn itself out somewhat, then raised her hand, and a carafe of wine flew into it, which she put down on her desk. Two goblets appeared on the desk beside it.

She poured Jack a generous measure of wine, pressing the goblet into his hand, then poured one for herself. He took a sip, then a healthy draught, then raised the goblet to her with a nod, a gesture of thanks.

She simply inclined her head in return, and sipped her own wine in silence, standing beside him, staring out the window at the night sky, for a long moment. Then, she broke that silence.

'She reminds you of the widow's daughter.'

It was clearly a statement, not a question.

Jack swallowed his mouthful of wine, looking back into the past, instead of at the stars.

Only a few years before the curse, there'd been a woman. A widow, with a daughter who'd been twelve when he'd met her mother.

He'd fallen in love with the widow, did his best to be a father to her daughter, taken the two of them as his family…until he'd messed it up.

(He'd never thought he was a good enough man for the two of them.)

He _always_ messed it up. Had never managed to maintain a relationship with a woman for longer than a handful of years.

Through the crystal ball, he'd gotten to see the girl grow up. Seen her fall in love, seen her get married, seen her have a few kids and a passel of grandchildren, seen her grow old, and seen her die.

(Her village had always been on the crystal ball, projected above the sphere, when he'd shown up in Patty's study, something that he knew now was no coincidence, not in the slightest.)

'A little bit.' A smile appeared on his face, softer and fonder than he probably realized. 'Riley's every inch her own person, Patty, can't possibly suggest otherwise.'

A glance over at the woman showed that she definitely wasn't.

(And showed that there was something soft, fond in her eyes.)

* * *

'Come on, Riley! It's delicious, I swear!'

Riley looked sceptically at the somewhat-rectangular, purple-topped, purple-cream-filled pastry that Bozer was offering her.

'What is it?'

Bozer gestured grandly.

'This, my heart, is an éclair.' He grabbed a slightly-floury piece of paper from the kitchen counter and held it up. 'It's a fancy French dessert.'

She nodded slowly.

'Why is it _purple_?'

'It's a violet and blueberry éclair.' Riley made a face, and Bozer pointed at her. 'Hey, don't knock it 'till you try it, and the recipe promised it would be _amazing_ , at least, whatever French is for amazing, and seriously, it delivered!'

Riley, who'd a little hesitantly picked up an éclair from the plate on the counter as Bozer raved (he never had let her down when it came to food, after all…), furrowed her brow.

'How'd you bake these, if the recipe was in French?'

Bozer shrugged and took a large bite of the éclair he was holding, trying to encourage her to do the same.

'Jack translated it.'

Riley almost spat out her mouthful of éclair (not because it was disgusting, because it was absolutely delicious, but out of shock).

' _Jack_ knows French?'

Bozer shrugged again, looking a little bit like she felt.

(Jack, they knew, wasn't stupid, but he also wasn't Mac, who'd somehow learned Italian in a week out of some books two weeks ago to win a bet with Jack.)

'He's had like 240 years to learn?'

* * *

'…Come on, guys! Don't you wanna know what they get up to?'

Bozer, during a break from weapons training, flung his hands out as he tried to persuade Mac and Jack to help him crash girls' day.

(The night before, Cage had told Riley to meet her at the West Tower at 10:30 am, and not to be late. When Riley had asked why, Cage had smiled in a way that was almost a smirk and replied, 'girls' day.')

(Apparently, Cage, Jill and Beth – the young women of the castle - tried to have a girls' day every couple of months or so. This was their first one since Riley, Bozer and Mac's arrival, and they were thus, of course, insisting that she joined them.)

(They had also been very tight-lipped about exactly what they did on girls' day, answering all of Bozer's questions with little smiles of varying degrees of mysteriousness, knowing-ness and teasing-ness.)

(He knew the last two weren't words, but bards made up words all the time. That travelling bard that Mac's grandfather had known had apparently made up over 400.)

Mac shook his head, picking up his quarterstaff again.

'It's a violation of their privacy, Boze.'

 _Look, of course I'm curious as to what the girls do on girls' day._

 _But it is a violation of their privacy to try and spy on them._

 _And I really, really do not want to piss them off._

 _I really don't want to be glued to the ceiling or be followed by snowballs that constantly bombard me or find myself with a blowdart in my backside._

 _And I did say I'd try and stay on Beth's good side, remember?_

Jack shook his head and waved his hands in a very firm no gesture.

'Oh, hell no, Boze. Hell, no.' He actually shuddered. 'I tried, years ago, and trust me, Bozer, you don't want to know what they did to me…'

* * *

'…We only left him on the ceiling for a couple of hours, but his hair stayed orange for a week.'

Cage smirked as she finished speaking and popped a miniature fruit tart into her mouth, as Jill nodded, a little bit sheepishly but very mischievously, taking a finger sandwich from the plate that Beth offered her.

Riley shook her head and laughed, sipping at the cordial that Beth had specially prepared for the occasion as the healer passed her the finger sandwiches.

'I wish I could have seen that…'

Jill swallowed her mouthful of finger sandwich and grinned.

'If Bozer manages to wrangle him into trying to crash again, you will!'

Cage shook her head, leaning back against the wall.

'Bozer might try, but neither Jack nor Mac will; the former has learned his lesson, the latter has an array of reasons…'

Jill's grin grew mischievous and teasing again.

'The main one being wanting to stay on the good side of a certain healer?'

Beth's cheeks pinked and she ducked her head and busied herself making up some more cordial. Jill's grin widened, and Cage and Riley exchanged a knowing look, the blonde woman speaking.

'That's definitely up there…' Her voice grew quieter, quiet enough Riley doubted that Jill and Beth could hear, as if she was essentially talking to herself. '…even if he won't quite admit it to himself.'

* * *

'…Actually, that reminds me of my fifteenth attempt to build a self-pulling plough.'

Beth paused just before taking a bite of her sandwich and lowered it instead, staring at him incredulously.

'You made _at least_ _fifteen_ attempts at building a self-pulling plough?'

The _at least_ made Mac give a little chuckle, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his free, non-sandwich-holding hand, a somewhat wry, somewhat sheepish, somewhat smug smile on his face.

'Yeah. There were a total of twenty-two attempts.' His smile grew more sheepish. 'None of them succeeded.' His smile twisted into a bit more of a smirk. 'But the fifteenth attempt was by far the most interesting…'

* * *

On the other side of the healer's garden, also eating lunch, Caitlyn and Michael exchanged a soft, fond, knowing smile, as their daughter burst into hysterical laughter, Mac starting to laugh a moment later in response to her reaction. Michael reached out to put a hand over his wife's, and she turned her hand over to weave her fingers into his.

* * *

'The story of the Mechanical Scarecrow Incident.'

Mac groaned and shook his head, leaning back in his seat, as his best friend pointed at him.

' _No_ , Boze.'

'You mean, _yes_ , _Boze_.'

Mac shook his head again.

'No, no I don't.'

Bozer decided to try a new tactic, and turned to Beth and Riley, who were also sitting at the library's main table, watching the byplay between Mac and Bozer with fond amusement. He smirked.

'Ladies, do you want to hear the story of the Mechanical Scarecrow Incident?' He leaned over and stage-whispered. 'It's one of the _best_ stories Mac's got.'

Riley crossed her arms and leaned back in her own chair, smirking at Mac.

'Well, then I'm with you, Bozer, we've got to hear it.'

Bozer preened at that, which Riley ignored.

Beth glanced over at Mac (who mouthed _please_ at her, even though he was quite sure it was futile – there was a very curious, eager look in her eyes, had been ever since Bozer mentioned the words 'Mechanical Scarecrow Incident'), smiled a sheepish, slightly-apologetic little smile at him, then turned to Bozer and nodded.

'I've _got_ to hear it, then.'

Bozer smirked wider and turned to his best friend, spreading his arms wide like a circus ringmaster.

'The ladies have spoken.' Mac huffed out a long-suffering sigh, and Bozer pointed at him. 'Seriously, bro, tell the ladies all about the Mechanical Scarecrow Incident, or I'll do it.'

Mac groaned (if Bozer told it, it'd wind up ludicrously embellished – he was trapped, and the other boy knew it), then shook his head with a fond, exasperated little smile, before finally acquiescing.

'Fine, Boze, you got me.' He rested his elbows on the table. 'When I was fourteen, I decided to build a mechanical scarecrow, because I thought it would be far more efficient at scaring away birds than a standard scarecrow…'

* * *

'…When it was done, I tested it, of course. In the field.' Mac's smile grew very wry. 'Literally.' His expression grew more sheepish. 'It did work, for about four minutes, before there was a malfunction.' He looked even more sheepish. 'An explosive, heat-releasing malfunction.' Mac shook his head. 'Long story short, I turned about a fifth of Farmer Wilson's cornfield into popcorn.'

Bozer chortled, slapping his hand on his thigh, as Beth and Riley both blinked, stunned, for a moment.

'It gets better every time you tell it, bro, and I was there!' He addressed the girls. 'He was really popular with all the kids in town for a while, but Farmer Wilson's kind of had it in for him ever since…'

Riley snorted.

'Yeah, I can't imagine _why,_ Bozer.'

Meanwhile, Beth burst into giggles, and reached over to poke at the air in front of Mac's chest.

'You, Angus MacGyver, are _ridiculous_.'

* * *

Standing in the doorway of the library (he'd come to get the teens for dinner), Jack watched, a soft, fond and knowing smile on his face.

* * *

AN: Awkward!teenage!Mac, Jack and Riley bonding, Mac's science mischief/science gone wrong…I'm happy with that!


	8. Chapter 8

AN: There might have been an issue with the upload/display of the last chapter on Fanfiction, so maybe double-check that you've read the last chapter before you read this one…

* * *

'Come on, son…' Jack sat down on one of the low stone walls that encircled the training ground, and patted the bit of wall next to him. 'Let's take a break, talk man-to-man.' Mac, not really sure where this was going, retracted his quarterstaff and sat down. Jack examined him for a moment, then continued talking. 'You, brother, are growing into a man. Now, 'cause of that, you've probably realized that sometimes, when you meet an attractive woman, that gives you certain feelings-'

Mac, ears very red, shook his head rather frantically.

'Jack, you don't need to have this talk with me, my grandfather already did, and trust me, he was pretty thorough…'

Jack's eyes widened too, quite comically.

'Oh, no, brother, I'm not trying to have _The_ Talk with you…' Jack shuddered. 'Just…no.' He shuddered again. 'Let's just pretend that this whole thing didn't happen, and start again, agreed?'

Mac nodded.

'Agreed.'

Jack was silent for a moment before speaking, as if wondering how best to start this conversation. He seemed to decide on a very direct approach.

'You ever been in love, son?'

It was Mac's turn to be silent for a beat, as he stared at one of the training dummies, not really seeing it, looking into his memories instead. Then, he spoke, voice quiet, tinged with sadness and regret.

'When my grandfather passed away…he left me everything he had, which was…quite a bit.' Mac swallowed, still staring into the distance, then glanced at Jack. 'There…there was a girl. A little over a year ago.' He swallowed and turned away again. 'Her name was Nikki.' Mac sighed. 'She…she seduced me to try and steal my inheritance.' Jack, despite the fact that he'd known where this was going as soon as Mac had mentioned his grandfather leaving him everything, winced and reached out to pat Mac's shoulder in sympathy. The blonde gave a little smile in thanks, which disappeared again as he continued. 'And…and I had no idea. Boze worked it out, had to tell me, which…' Mac sighed. 'When…when I asked, if it was all a lie…she said she really did love me, but…' He shrugged helplessly. '…She lied to me about so much, I…I didn't think I should trust her, even if…' He swallowed, looking down at the ground. '…even if I really wanted to.'

 _I know I'm young. I was even younger then._

 _But I did love her._

 _Even after learning about all her lies, her intentions…I think I still did, for a while._

 _But, in the end, I couldn't. I just couldn't anymore, not after what she'd done._

Wordlessly, Jack slipped an arm around his shoulders comfortingly, silent for a moment before speaking.

'Love can hurt, son. Love can hurt.' Jack sighed, staring into his own past. 'When I was just a few years older than you, I was in love with one of Matty's spies.' Jack smiled, soft and fond and slow and sad. 'Sarah could kick my ass and look damn great doing it.' He sighed again. 'But I wound up not telling her how I felt, 'cause I thought she'd always be there, and I missed my chance. She married some other guy.' It was Mac's turn to reach up and pat Jack's shoulder in sympathy. 'And a few years before the hullabaloo with the evil wizard, there was a widow who had a daughter.' That soft, fond, slow, sad smile reappeared. 'We were kinda a little family for a handful of years, but I messed that up too.' Jack gave a bitter snort of laughter. 'There's been a few other women over the years.' He turned to Mac again, his expression serious. 'But Mac, son, even if it can hurt…it's worth it. Don't let a past bad experience ruin a future one that could be really, really good, alright? The girl who wanted you for your inheritance? She's the exception, Mac, not the rule.' Jack smirked teasingly, his expression pointed in a way that made Mac's ears redden. 'Pretty sure this girl wants you for your brain.'

Mac's ears reddened further.

 _I'm not sure I believe Jack regarding the whole 'exception, not the rule' bit._

 _I don't have very many charms to recommend me to a girl, after all._

 _But…hopefully, it doesn't matter._

 _I think…I think Beth might, somehow, like me the way I like her._

 _Yes, I've finally admitted it to myself._

 _And…and if she really does, if those smiles and conversations and what I think might be shy glances and moments sort-of like those in romance novels mean what I think, what I hope, they mean…I know for sure that it's not because of my inheritance – which I don't really have any more – but for me._

 _Not-so-skinny-anymore, thanks to Jack, crazy, dorky, gets-excited-by-weird things – which she gets excited by too – me._

 _Now, I reckon that makes her pretty exceptional._

 _But my grandfather always said that it was all about finding the right one for you, which I suppose by definition, means that your right one will always seem exceptional, to you._

* * *

Cage looked up from the thick leather-bound tome she was reading as Matty, who was reading a similar tome while muttering under her breath, spoke.

'I dreamed last night.' That in itself sounded innocuous, mundane, if not a little odd, but Cage knew exactly what the Spymaster meant. Matty occasionally had dreams that were more like visions, hints of the future. 'Mac, Bozer, Riley, they're the key.'

'Do you know why? How?'

Matty shook her head, but spoke anyway.

'Riley's magic is very powerful. She might be stronger than the Queen…'

'Perhaps.'

Cage didn't sound very convinced. They'd spent 200 years attempting to break the curse by force of magic. Lack of magical power or skill didn't seem to be a problem.

She closed her book with a snap as something hit her.

Maybe this was a people problem, not a magical problem.

The presence of the three teenagers had altered the dynamic in the castle between almost all of its inhabitants, even if it was just infinitesimally in several cases.

They were the key, just not in the way that Matty was thinking.

'I have an idea.'

Matty stared at her for a moment, then leaned closer, a little smile on her face.

'Start talking. I'm listening.'

* * *

'Boze…are you sure that's a good idea?' Mac looked up from his book and over at his best friend, who was working very hard on a love sonnet for Riley. 'I mean, your flirting doesn't seem to be well-received, I think you might be making her uncomfortable, actually…'

Bozer made a face, as if he thought Mac was insane, but something uncertain flickered through his eyes for a moment too.

'Bro, of course it's a good idea!' He pointed at the blonde. 'Girls love love poems!' Mac still looked very sceptical, and Bozer huffed out a breath and jabbed his finger at his best friend. 'You should write one for Beth!'

Mac spluttered, ears reddening, and tried to look confused.

'What? It's not like that…' Bozer looked very, very sceptical, as Mac trailed off. Bozer was his best friend. He'd admitted it to himself. He'd sort-of admitted it to Jack. 'She's brilliant. She's beautiful. She appreciates engineering and loves experiments and she's kind and sweet and fierce, all at once…'

Bozer would describe his best friend's expression at that moment as a little goofy and besotted. He considered Mac's words for a moment, then handed him a blank piece of paper.

'Not bad, bro. That's a good start, you just need to make it rhyme now…'

Mac just put the piece of paper back in Bozer's stack.

'Uh, thanks, Boze…but I think I'll leave the poetry to you.'

 _There will be no sonnets. Absolutely none._

 _I am a terrible poet._

* * *

'Jack…can I get some advice?' Bozer, standing with Jack under the shade of a tree, sipping water (Riley and Mac had left weapons training an hour previous, for the central courtyard and Michael's workshop respectively), turned to the older man. Mac's words from the day before had been niggling at him ever since, and Mac had admitted that Jack had offered him a little romantic advice, so… 'About Riley?'

Jack sighed and put down his mug of water.

He'd meant to have this conversation with Bozer sometime soon anyway.

'Bozer, you have _got_ to stop hitting on her constantly and start taking no for an answer.'

The teen looked completely and utterly bemused, shocked, _confused_ and Jack sighed internally.

Clearly, both Mac and Bozer were utterly hopeless with women.

Mac, Jack was sure, would probably spend at least a year too shy and hesitant to make a move, not willing to, in his mind, risk a friendship that he valued greatly. That meant months and months of bizarre conversations that Jack couldn't really follow, weird experiments, and soft, besotted smiles and glances and standing right on that edge between friends and lovers.

And Bozer, clearly, didn't really know much better than to constantly flirt with the object of his affections, ignore all of her signals that she did not like that, and put his hopes about what he wanted them to be ahead of what they were.

Maybe it was the being orphans bit.

Maybe it was the being social outcasts bit.

Maybe it was lack of experience.

Maybe it was the being teenagers bit.

(It was probably all of the above.)

'Jack, I-'

He held up a hand.

'Let me finish, Bozer. You and Riley are friends. If that's all you ever are, be happy with that! Anyone who can call Riley Davis a close personal friend is lucky. She's a good person, man.' Bozer nodded in complete agreement. 'You can't force her or convince her to feel the same way about you.' The teen looked shame-faced as he seemed to realize that was exactly what he'd been doing. 'So if you don't start taking no for an answer, I'm gonna have to go all bear on you and rip your arms off.' Bozer swallowed and nodded, looking down, deflated, which was really something, considering how energetic he was. Jack's expression softened a little, remembering what it was like to be a teenager, how difficult the world of love and courting had felt at that age (and, honestly, sometimes still did). 'You really like her, don't you?'

Bozer looked up and nodded sadly.

'Yeah, I really do. I mean, I know it sounds bad, given what we've just talked about…but I really do, Jack. And it's not just because she's really beautiful…' He looked ashamed again, looking down. '…it kinda was, at first.' He looked up again, looking very earnest and genuine. 'But she's brilliant and she taught herself magic and she spent years saving people's lives, including Mac's, and she's experienced terrible things that would give me nightmares for _months_ and come out even stronger for it, and she appreciates fashion and style, which, seriously, like no-one else here does…and she's badass in pretty much every way…'

Jack sighed.

Being a surrogate father was hard. Really hard.

He didn't quite know how Riley felt about Bozer.

He knew that she did like him as a friend, and might even like the real Bozer (the one who always had a joke at the ready, who cooked great food, who was a bit weird and occasionally inappropriate but had his heart in the right place and was endlessly loyal and supportive and brave and funny – or, at least, he tried to be funny - and who was a _great_ friend) the way that Bozer liked her.

But Jack also knew that Riley definitely didn't like the Bozer who hit on her constantly and would not take no for an answer. Who was trying to 'win' her.

Love wasn't a game. Wasn't about winning. Women weren't prizes.

Jack knew he'd acted like he held that attitude when he was younger. He knew that, sometimes, he might've toed the line when he'd gotten older, too.

But he knew that love wasn't a game and women weren't prizes, and did his best to abide by those little axioms.

'Look, Boze, I'm glad you have real feelings for her. That makes me feel better about all this.' He fixed Bozer with a very serious look. 'But that doesn't mean you're allowed to keep driving her crazy and trying to get her to feel the same, okay?' Bozer nodded seriously, holding eye contact with him, and Jack continued. 'Go apologize to her. Be her friend. Just her friend, Bozer. No agenda, no stepping stone to something else, okay? Keep your more-than-friendly feelings to yourself. If something happens, great. If it doesn't, also great, 'cause she's your friend. Clear?'

Bozer nodded seriously again.

'As crystal, Jack.' He paused. 'Thanks.'

His voice was completely sincere, and Jack smiled and clapped him the shoulder.

'Always glad to share the wisdom, brother.'

* * *

'Riley?'

Bozer slipped into the library, which was thankfully empty, aside from the teenage girl. He'd run into Cage on his way back to the castle after his chat with Jack, who'd simply told him to go to the library before he could actually say anything.

She looked up at him, and Bozer spoke before she could speak.

'I'm sorry.' She looked a little confused for a moment, as he continued. 'For not taking any of the one billion hints you've been dropping and making things weird between us.' He swallowed and looked very rueful. 'I let my hopes about what we could be blind me to what we are. And what we are is pretty great.'

She regarded him for a moment, looking into his eyes.

He was completely, utterly sincere.

She'd always known that Bozer was a really good person. Genuinely so.

(Look, she'd met him when he was about to go into a life of exile, a life on the run, with his best friend, leaving behind his life just so Mac wouldn't be alone.)

And he was genuinely caring and loyal and quite funny. He might not be as clever or talented or badass as other people, but he did everything he could to protect and care for his loved ones.

She was happy and thankful to call him her friend.

And he was kind of cute.

'Are you saying you're finally ready to be my friend?' Bozer nodded, and Riley grinned and closed her book. 'Then let's go grab a snack and plot to give Mac and Jack wardrobe makeovers.'

Bozer grinned right back at her.

* * *

'Here you go, brother.'

Jack, head, torso and upper arms sopping wet, handed Mac the bucket of cold water he'd just drawn up from the well.

It had been a boiling hot day, unseasonably so for the start of fall, and it was still hot despite the fact that it was almost dinner-time, and he and Mac had just spent hours training and sparring.

Mac took the bucket with a nod of thanks, and tipped it over his head. As he was just lowering the bucket, wiping his eyes and combing his hair off his face, Beth walked into the training yard.

The teenage girl stopped in her tracks and stared for a moment, her eyes widening and cheeks pinking. Mac, shirt plastered to his body and hair still dripping, and still holding the bucket, stared back, his ears burning.

Jack snickered to himself and smirked.

(He was totally taking credit for this.)

After a moment of staring, Beth regained her composure (she was a healer, after all) and spoke.

'Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes; you two should wash up and…um…put on some dry clothes.' She paused. 'See you at dinner!'

With that, she turned and left, and Jack smirked wider and socked Mac relatively lightly in the arm, teasingly.

'She couldn't keep her eyes off you! You can thank me for that assist, and the whole not-being-a-toothpick-anymore bit, brother. Anytime. I'm waiting.'

Mac's ears burned redder, he made a spluttering noise, and he busied himself re-attaching the bucket to the well's rope.

Jack's smirk just widened further.

* * *

From the window in her study, Patricia watched, eyes a maelstrom of emotions.

Something softer, fonder. Maybe even amused.

But, above all, something profoundly sad. Profoundly guilty.

She turned away from the window.

* * *

Jack let out a satisfied, relaxed breath, leaning back in his favourite armchair and putting his feet up on his favourite footstool.

Sitting in the armchair opposite him, Patricia simply lifted a finger, and a tankard of beer appeared and floated into his hand, which made Jack grin at her.

He lifted the tankard in a toast of sorts.

'Thanks, Patty.'

That got him a little smile that reached her eyes and a graceful nod of her head.

He didn't know when, exactly, that he'd started having a relatively-regular, near-nightly nightcap in her study, but Jack wasn't complaining.

Patty was actually good company, even if you wouldn't think it.

Besides, she could instantly transport beer from the kegs downstairs into his hands.

The carafe of wine on one of the shelves poured a measure of itself into a goblet, which then zoomed into her hands, and she took a sip.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while longer, each sipping their own drinks, before Patricia glanced over at Jack and spoke.

'You shouldn't encourage them, Jack.'

He sighed, knowing exactly what she was referring to.

He'd seen her fix him with a look when he and Mac had come to dinner a few hours' previous.

'And why not, Patty?' He gestured to the air in general with his tankard. 'They clearly like each other, and it ain't 'cause it's convenient or there's no-one else either. Neither of them are making each other uncomfortable or pushing too hard; in fact, without some nudging, they're not gonna get anywhere.' He pointed at her with his tankard. 'You know that, Patty!'

She put down her goblet, seemingly having lost all desire to drink its contents.

'And you are avoiding the real problem, Jack.' There was something deeply, profoundly sad and sorry in her dark eyes. 'One day, Mac is going to leave. It'll end in pain, for both of them.'

Jack looked stubbornly back at her.

'He might not, Patty.'

She sighed.

'Then he'll age and die. It'll end the same way, Jack.'

His expression remained stubbornly resolute, yet, somehow, warm and caring and a little sad.

'Still worth it, Patty.' He seemed to be looking right through her. 'Love is worth it. It's worth the pain it might bring, and we should all take what happiness we can get.'

She stared at him for a long moment, then picked up her goblet and sipped at her wine again, and they fell back into that comfortable silence, both lost in their thoughts, Jack occasionally shooting her concerned glances, which she noticed, but didn't do anything about.

She felt just that little bit warmer inside, and she knew it wasn't the wine.

When she'd finished her wine, Patricia stood to retire for the night.

'Good night, Jack.'

He smiled and raised the empty tankard at her again.

'Night, Patty.'

With a little smile, she swept out of the room.

* * *

'…Sorry I'm late, Jack was feeling particularly talkative today; he spent about fifteen minutes telling us about how he was Phoenix Whip-Cracking Champion when he was young…' Riley rolled her eyes fondly as she took off her knife belt. 'He's ridiculous, but…'

Patricia (after several sessions of magical tutoring, she'd told Riley to call her that, as her rank was irrelevant when they were practicing magic, and she wasn't Queen of much, anyway) gave a very small, fond smile and nodded.

'Jack Dalton has a way of getting under your skin.'

Something in the way she said that made the cogs in Riley's head turn.

* * *

'Hey, Michael, can you pass the…' The pepper shaker that had been sitting next to the Engineer (who was telling Mac all about the time he'd met some Engineer called Edison who was apparently a bit of an ass) floated up and into Jack's hands. He grinned at the Queen, who was sitting at the head of the table, raising the pepper shaker. 'Thanks, Patty.'

She smiled back at him, a quiet, little smile that Riley was pretty sure only she, Jack, Cage and Matty noticed.

(Beth and her mom were chatting, while Bozer was animatedly telling Jill a story about a mishap he'd had while he'd been a tailor's apprentice.)

Riley blinked.

How had she not noticed this before? In hindsight, it was so obvious…

She smiled knowingly, sharing that expression with the Spymaster and her apprentice.

* * *

'You know, when the scorned suitor set the curse, he gave us one way to break it.'

Cage strode into the library, and Mac and Beth looked over from where they were scribbling with chalk on a large slate mounted in a frame with wheels, Bozer looked up from where he was reading a romance-action-adventure novel, and Jill and Riley stopped making random objects fly around the library.

Beth and Jill looked rather confused (Cage did everything for a reason, they just didn't always know why…), while Mac, Bozer and Riley looked questioning and hopeful at the same time.

Cage simply continued.

'The Queen has to fall in love. True love.'

Bozer's brow furrowed.

'How does that help? What're we gonna do? Kidnap random guys and bring them here and hold them prisoner until she falls for one of them?' He paused. 'Huh. Maybe that'd be a good novel…'

'I don't think kidnapping people is a good idea, Boze, but…' Mac shrugged. 'Maybe we could convince people to come for visits?'

He sounded rather sceptical, unsurprisingly.

Riley huffed out a sigh, and punched Bozer in the arm (she couldn't reach Mac).

' _Boys._ ' She threw up her hands. 'It's obvious! We just need to get Jack and the Queen to realize that they're in love with each other!'

Mac and Bozer both looked as if she'd just told them that the entire castle was actually made of cheese. Beth had tilted her head to the left, considering, but didn't look convinced. Jill seemed a little more open to the possibility, while Cage was smiling knowingly in agreement with Riley.

She'd always, personally, thought that it was quite possible that Jack and Patricia would grow to love each other, but only if something occurred to cause a little change, a slight alteration, in their dynamic.

Mac, Bozer and Riley's arrival and presence had brought that.

Riley got up, and marched over to the 'blackboard'. Beth handed her the piece of chalk she'd been holding, seeming to recognize that _I-have-an-idea_ look on Riley's face.

The girl waved her hand and the equations that Mac and Beth had been writing on the board vanished (Mac made a little noise of protest, but didn't say anything as Beth said quietly to him that they could always reconstruct their math later), and she started writing on the board, then turned to the rest of the castle's youth.

'Clearly, they're never going to realize that they're in love on their own.' It'd been 200 years, after all. 'So we are going to have to help them.' She gestured to the chalk scribbles. 'And this is how we're gonna do it.'

* * *

AN: Poor Jack…you never asked to be the father-figure to three teenagers. You also clearly never asked to have to deal with their romantic hopelessness…but hey, I reckon you're doing a pretty good job! And yup, the plot is picking up! Look out, Jack and Patricia, 'cause the castle youth is up to mischief!

And yes – Bozer is referencing _Beauty and the Beast_ in that last scene!

And I've just found out that 2.16, Hammock + Balcony, doesn't air until March 2nd! That'll be after I start my Honours (our equivalent of the first two years of a PhD in the US, I think), too, so less time for writing etc. Still, I think we'll get some of the fallout of Bozer and Leanna's relationship being revealed (probably with Mac being a little oblivious in some way at some point, like not realizing when it's really, really obvious that Bozer and Leanna are actually together and not just 'oh, my, we just happened to re-encounter each other again!'), and I think depending on whether they stay together by episode's end, we'll (or at least I'll – I think it's been clear for some people for a while, but I'm not so good at this stuff) have a more concrete answer as to whether they're doing Bozer/Riley endgame or Bozer-and-Riley-are-just-really-good-friends-forever.


	9. Chapter 9

Mac kicked one of the training dummies attacking him hard in the stomach, then knocked away the sword of a second using his quarterstaff, before knocking out the lights of a third with another quick movement of the staff. He whirled around and blocked the double knife attack of the dummy that he'd winded, twisting the staff to force the dummy to drop its knives.

* * *

'Oh…hey, Patty.'

Jack, a crooked little grin on his face, held a hand up and waved as best as he could, considering that they were inside a very small storage closet.

Patricia just raised an eyebrow at him, hints of fond exasperation and amusement in her eyes, then turned and put a hand on the door (Jack had been struggling against the lock and the door for a good ten minutes before she'd opened the door and walked in, and the door had slammed shut behind her instantly). It clicked open instantly, and they walked out of the closet.

She surprised him by giving a wry little smile as they re-entered the corridor.

'How were you lured into the closet, Jack?'

He made a face.

'Jill wanted me to get rid of a giant spider.'

She raised an eyebrow at him again.

'Jill isn't scared of spiders.'

Jack rolled his eyes.

'You know I have trouble remembering stuff about her, Patty!'

Jack really had no idea why his memory was so leaky when it came to his lady's maid, but it was.

* * *

Two magically-animated training dummies were thrown to the ground, falling still and 'unconscious', while a third was quickly disarmed and held at knifepoint by Riley, her arm around its neck.

Sitting on the stone wall, Mac clapped, while Bozer gave a whoop and a 'Go, Riley!', and Jack grinned and nodded in approval, giving her a double thumbs-up.

* * *

Mac strode through the nearby woods, eyes peeled and hunting for the flowers he'd been ordered to find.

 _Yes, ordered is the right term._

 _Bozer and Riley found a book on floriography, the language of flowers, in the library, and are now insistent that we have white violets on the table for Jack and the Queen's romantic dinner, which is scheduled for tonight, not that they know it._

 _Unfortunately, though the castle gardens have a huge array of flowers, including violets, there are no white violets, so I've been sent on an errand._

His eyes were caught, however, by a stand of sunflowers in the glade he was passing through, tilted up at the sun.

 _There are no sunflowers in the castle's grounds either._

 _Now, I have no idea what meaning sunflowers have, but their seeds are good to eat, and according to one of Beth's healing books, they have various medicinal uses, such as fever reduction._

 _And it is fascinating how the flowers follow the path of the sun over the course of the day, and they're aesthetically pleasing…_

He stopped and cut a few of the flowers, tying the stems together with a length of cast-off ribbon he'd 'borrowed' for bundling the violets he was meant to collect into bunches.

There was really no need to bring back whole flowers; he could just collect some of the seeds to be grown into plants, but the flowers were far more aesthetically pleasing, so…

 _Now, to find some white violets…_

* * *

Bozer clubbed one of the training dummies hard in the back of the head, then used the weapon to block the strike of a second dummy's sword, stepping closer to reduce the dummy's leverage, then kneeing the dummy hard in the stomach and knocking it out when it bent over, winded. He then whirled around to face the third dummy, which was lunging at him, and grabbed its wrist, using its momentum to throw it into the wall.

* * *

White violets in one hand, sunflowers in the other, Mac walked into the castle gardens, where he knew Beth would most likely be. (She'd been assigned the job of cutting all the other flowers needed from the castle's collection, and he knew she'd almost-certainly still be doing that – he'd set off very early that morning, just after dawn, before breakfast, to minimise the chances of encountering anyone outside the castle walls, taking a little food with him to eat as he walked, and Beth had been rostered onto breakfast duty.)

He found her by the rose bushes, carefully snipping off blooms of red roses.

'I got the violets!'

She looked up and smiled, then her nose wrinkled and she tilted her head to the left.

'Is it weird that I think that non-violet violets are just weird?' Her brow furrowed. 'And what are the sunflowers for?'

He laughed, putting the white violets carefully into one of the two buckets, half-full of water, that she had at her feet, where they joined red tulips, primroses and jonquils, then held out the sunflowers to her.

'There aren't any here in the castle, and, well, the seeds are pretty tasty, and they have medicinal properties, and the way that they follow the sun is fascinating; I have some experiments in mind that we could do, and they're pretty…' He felt blood rush to his ears and hoped that the rest of him wasn't blushing too. '…and I thought you'd like them.'

He realized then that of course Beth knew all about floriography (she'd read that book a minimum of four times, after all) and hoped that sunflowers didn't have some really offensive or weird meaning.

But she smiled widely up at him, and reached out and took the flowers.

'Thank you very much, Mac.' She gestured with her head in the direction of the calla lilies, smile growing wry and teasing. 'Help me get Bozer and Riley's flower order done, so we can plant some sunflower seeds? The sooner we get them growing, the sooner we can make a start on those experiments, right?'

He chuckled, and pulled out his Engineer's knife, pulling out the scissors attachment.

* * *

'Now, the secret to a good pastrami is all in the rub…'

Bozer started mixing a series of spices together in a bowl, as Riley's brow furrowed and she glanced between the spice mix he was preparing and the side of beef, which had been soaked in brine the night before, on the counter.

(Bozer insisted that he had the perfect romantic menu planned out, including the dish that had made his mother fall in love with his father, apparently.)

'What in the world is _pastrami_?'

Bozer smirked.

'Why, Miss Riley Davis, I am so glad you asked!' She shot him an exasperated look with a healthy dollop of fondness in it. 'It's a unique Bozer family recipe! My grandfather invented it, and my dad wooed my mom with it! Take some beef brisket, brine it, then massage in the rub, then get it cooking!' Bozer started rubbing in the spices. 'Only annoying thing is that it takes half the day…' He paused, and then his _I-have-an-idea_ face appeared. 'Huh. Maybe I'll get Mac onto that. See if he can build something that can cook it in, like, half an hour…'

Riley raised an eyebrow sceptically.

Mac was really good at engineering. But she had a sneaking suspicion that an attempt by him to create a device that could cook this 'pastrami' in half an hour would lead to a fire…

* * *

Mac pocketed his Engineer's knife and pulled out one of the 'paperclips' in his pockets, re-shaping the little piece of wire.

(He'd created the 'paperclip' last month, after witnessing Bozer rant about how hard it was to keep his various pieces of paper containing the various stories he was writing organized, since he wrote bits and pieces at once, not in chronological order – or any sensible order, in Mac's opinion, but Bozer was the writer, not him, so he supposed he couldn't really judge. It was an extremely simple invention, but the engineering involved was surprisingly complex. He'd also discovered that they were immeasurably useful, having many more applications than he'd thought when he'd been inventing them.)

He attached the little piece of re-shaped wire to the cello's bow, and glanced over at Cage.

'Give it a try now…'

She nodded, concentrated and waved a hand, and the bow, held by a metal arm which was, in turn, attached to the stand that Mac had built for the cello, moved across the strings.

(It was too difficult to enchant the instruments to play themselves; that would have required either Riley, Cage or Jill to stay in the tower room during the whole romantic dinner, which they all agreed wasn't good for the romance, so after some experimenting, they'd found that by reducing the number of variables that had to be controlled magically – using Mac's engineering skills, with some assistance from Beth and her knowledge of anatomy – Cage, Jill and Riley could enchant the instruments to play themselves ahead of time.)

They both smiled, then Mac turned to Jill, who'd just entered the room, along with an accordion, a triangle and a viola, all flying ahead of her.

'Alright, could you just put the accordion over there? And the triangle goes over there…'

* * *

'Try it!'

Bozer offered Riley a plate with a slice of the 'pastrami' on it, and a fork.

It smelled absolutely divine, and Bozer really had never let her down when it came to food, so Riley, without hesitation, took a bite.

As the meat hit her tongue, her eyes widened.

The flavour, the texture, everything about it was just _incredible._

She got why Bozer's mom had been so charmed by Bozer's dad making this for her.

If you could fall in love with someone through food, this pastrami would do it.

She smiled at him and took another bite.

Bozer grinned proudly.

* * *

'You're just in time to see the accordion player!'

Mac looked up with a grin as Beth entered the tower room, her arms laden with dishes and silverware, a tablecloth thrown over her shoulder.

The healer grinned right back and put down the flatware and cutlery on the little table (just big enough for two, no bigger) that they'd set up earlier.

Cage, with a knowing little smile, raised her hand slightly, and the two arms that held the accordion's ends in vice-like 'hands' started to move.

* * *

'…You gotta give it them, they're sneakier than I thought.' Jack, sitting on one of the chairs at the table, paused and amended his statement. 'I mean, I always knew Cage could be really sneaky, and I had a sneaking suspicion that Riles could be too, but I did not know that Mac, Boze, Jill or Beth had it in 'em…'

Patricia looked up from where she was examining the self-playing musical instruments, which were playing romantic music, a very wry little smile on her face.

(Despite the fact that it was hilariously obvious, the kids clearly thought they were being subtle – except Cage, they knew she had to realize that they weren't at all, but for some reason she was going along with it…)

(Jack had no idea where they'd gotten the clearly hare-brained notion that he and Patty were suited to each other, but he had to give them credit for their persistence and creativity.)

'Have you forgotten the Great Prank War?'

Jack made a _huh_ sound, then crossed his arms.

'It was 79 years ago, Patty!'

Her smile widened a little, and she gestured to the instruments.

'Their combination of engineering and magic is truly impressive.' She reached out and put a hand on the door. 'I don't think I can magic us out again.'

The door had been locked using that same combination of engineering and magic. She required a line of sight for teleportation, and could only teleport herself.

Jack waved a hand in the air, as if to say, _not a problem._

'Eh, no sweat, Patty.' He grinned. 'I ain't in a hurry to go anywhere, and there are way worse people to be locked in with.' A look of wry, fond amusement appeared on her face, as Jack lifted one of the cloches on the dishes on the table. 'Besides, it'd be a waste of a good dinner…' His brow furrowed as he examined the slices of beef on the plate, which were emitting a wonderful smell. 'Patty, you got any idea what this is?' She stared at it for a moment, then shook her head. Jack shrugged. 'Eh, smells good. Should taste it, too.' He lifted the rest of the cloches with a series of flourishes, earning him a rather fond little head-shake, then got up and pulled out her chair for her with an exaggerated bow. 'My lady.' After she sat, he sat back down and rubbed his hands together, a roguish grin on his face. 'I'm told I'm an excellent dinner companion, so you're in for a treat, Patty.'

She raised her eyebrows at him, but smiled the widest smile she ever did smile, something soft and fond in her eyes beneath the exasperation.

(She understood why the little band of teens and barely-adults had decided to try and match-make her and Jack. They were friends, close friends. She trusted him implicitly and she'd let him through most of her walls, as many walls as she'd let anyone through for over 220 years. She hadn't _intended_ to, Jack Dalton had just gotten under her skin, somehow.)

(But although she admitted that Jack was a very attractive man, charming in his own way…she hadn't loved anyone since she was a very young woman, barely out of her teens. She'd always been cool, almost cold, and when _he'd_ died...well, her scorned suitor, that damned wizard, had been right about her heart of stone. She didn't think she could ever love anyone again.)

(But that didn't mean she wasn't grateful for the friendship of all those who lived within her castle. Who'd chosen to share her curse, and who'd chosen to stay, knowing the truth.)

(That didn't mean she didn't care about them.)

The carafe of wine started pouring itself into the two goblets, and Jack smiled and picked one up.

'Cheers, Patty.'

(The nickname was well beneath her dignity as Queen. It broke at least sixteen rules of protocol.)

(But she knew a lost cause when she saw one. It was just like his use of her best coffee table as a footstool.)

(And it'd kind-of, sort-of grown on her.)

* * *

'Riley?' Bozer rubbed his eyes. It was almost-dawn, really, really early, in other words, and he'd only gotten up to use the bathroom, but the teenage girl was standing by the window in the little nook near their rooms. 'You okay?'

She glanced over at him, then looked back out the window again, swallowing, before speaking, her voice very soft and full of emotion.

'Today is my mom's birthday.'

'I…I'm…' Bozer honestly didn't know what to say. Some things couldn't be expressed well in words. 'Would you like a hug?'

Riley turned around and faced him again, giving a little nod, and he held up his arms. She stepped closer and hugged him, tucking her chin over his shoulder, and Bozer gently patted her back.

After a moment, they let go of each other again, and Bozer took a seat in one of the chairs. Riley did the same a beat later.

They sat in silence for a while, before Bozer spoke, voice soft and a little hesitant, as if he wasn't completely sure how to help her (sure, he was an orphan too, but what had happened to her mom was way different from what had happened to his parents…), but was determined to help in any way he could.

'Do you wanna talk about her, tell me a story? Any story?'

Riley was silent for a moment, and Bozer thought he might have said the wrong thing, but then, she spoke up, a little smile slowly appearing on her face as she lost herself in the happy memory.

'We had a cat. A little ginger one, with green eyes…'

* * *

'Can…can I make your mom a birthday feast, Riley?'

'She's dead, Bozer.'

'So?' Bozer shrugged, spreading his hands wide. 'After my brother died, my family made a feast of all his favourites every year on his birthday, to help keep his memory alive, celebrate his life, you know. It's a Bozer family tradition.' He shrugged again. 'And you're family now too, so…'

Riley gave a soft little smile at that, then nodded.

'Okay.' Her smile widened a little. 'Thanks, Bozer.'

He smiled right back.

'Anytime, Riley, anytime.'

* * *

Word spread around the castle, of course.

(They really were like an insular little village, where everyone was up in everyone else's business.)

Riley found she didn't really mind.

Quite the opposite, actually.

* * *

That night, after a dinner of all of Diane's favourite foods, which had included a toast to her, her courage and her love for her daughter and her memory, Riley was surprised when Patricia led them all out into the gardens.

Mac and Bozer seemed to share her surprise, at least for a moment, before understanding and realization flickered across Mac's face.

Patricia stopped in the middle of the lawn, and turned to Riley.

'The tradition has died out, but when I was your age, every year, we'd light a lantern for loved ones we'd lost, and send it up to the sky. To remember and commemorate them…and maybe to let them know that we do remember them, and miss them.' She paused, uncharacteristic softness in her eyes. 'Do you want to light one for your mother?'

Riley nodded silently, and Patricia held out her hands, instructing the teenager like she did during their magic lessons.

'Envision it in your mind's eye, harness your magic, feel it become real…'

* * *

Patricia stood at the back of the lawn, nearest the castle, watching the lanterns, conjured by herself, Riley, Cage and Jill, floated up into the sky.

She made a little motion of her hand, and another one appeared in her hands, a name neatly written on it in her own handwriting, and then, she let it go, and it too joined its fellows in the sky, drifting slowly upwards.

As the lantern left her hands, Jack, who'd just let go of Mac after having pulled him into a side-hug, turned around, making eye contact with her.

After a brief second, he gave a little nod, eyes full of sympathy and care and affection.

She nodded back, something very grateful and equally-affectionate in her eyes, even if it was far less clear than it'd been in Jack's.

He got the message anyway.

* * *

AN: Ooh…maybe the matchmaking isn't as unsuccessful as the 'kids' must be thinking…

All of my knowledge about floriography comes from the internet; it might be slightly questionable, so if the meanings of the flowers seem weird to you, that might be why…

Yes, Mac invented the paperclip in this AU, and Bozer's family invented pastrami. I couldn't resist!

In other news, I've got a Valentine's Day fic coming up (it's about 12-15 K words, I think, so short-ish). It's tentatively titled _Today was a Fairytale,_ so keep an eye out for that!


	10. Chapter 10

There were so many fascinating things in the Queen's study.

Of course, the crystal ball at the centre of the room was eye-catching, but there was also an original Louis XV coffee table (which Jack was using as a _footstool_ …), and an extremely intricate clock, and all manner of magical artefacts…

Jack shook his head with much exasperation but also much fondness, throwing up his arms as if to say, _can you believe this guy?_

Patricia gave a little smile that Mac swore was almost-fond.

But, like a magnet, one object, not as large or showy or shiny as the other objects, eventually caught his eye.

A pocketwatch.

Bronze, utilitarian, but well-made, well cared for.

Mac's eyes widened, and he stepped closer and grabbed the watch off its shelf, without thinking.

He opened it, saw the initials engraved there, confirming his suspicions, what he'd _known_ since he'd laid eyes on it, and rounded on Jack and Patricia.

'This is my dad's.' He held it up, a maelstrom of emotions in his voice. Sadness, hope, anger, disbelief... 'My dad's pocketwatch. How did you…'

Jack's eyes had widened in shock. Patricia's expression, too, showed rare surprise, and there was sorrow in her dark eyes.

It was the Queen who spoke.

'Seven years ago, a dying man came to our gates…'

Mac glanced between the pocketwatch in his hands and the lady of the castle, tears starting to well in his eyes, shock and pain and hurt in his gaze.

He didn't stay to hear her finish her sentence, and instead, bolted out of the Queen's study, the pocketwatch still in hand.

Jack jumped up, knocking the very expensive coffee table over, and bolted out the door after him.

Patricia watched him leave, then glanced over at the spot on the shelf where the pocketwatch had been, then sat down at her desk, resting her elbows on it and putting her face in her hands, shoulders slumping.

* * *

Mac ran through the castle, no clear destination in mind.

Bozer and Riley (in the middle of setting up the self-playing musical instruments to serenade Jack and Patricia again) stopped what they were doing and stared as their friend ran by.

'Mac?'

'Bro, you okay?'

About thirty seconds later (Mac was substantially faster), Jack ran by too.

'Jack!'

'What's happening?'

Bozer and Riley exchanged a very, very concerned glance, then put down the musical instruments, and took off after Jack.

* * *

Jack finally caught up with Mac in the laundry courtyard, and Bozer and Riley, running at full tilt, almost collided with him, but caught themselves in time.

Mac was facing away from them, breathing hard. Jack took a step forward, reached out with a hand, and the blonde whirled around, still with shock and pain and hurt and tears in his eyes.

'Did…did you know?' He gestured vaguely with the hand holding his dad's pocketwatch. 'Did any of you know?'

Jack shook his head, eyes very sad and sorry.

'No, son, no.' He gestured with his head towards the watch. 'Or we'd have given you that and told you…'

Mac stared into his eyes for a moment, then nodded in acceptance, believing Jack. Then, the tears started to flow, and without a word, Jack put an arm around his shoulders and guided him to sit down on one of the benches that ran around the courtyard, and Bozer sat down on the other side of his best friend, putting his own arm around him, while Riley sat down on Bozer's other side. She concentrated and raised a hand, and a whole stack of handkerchiefs appeared in Mac's lap.

* * *

A few minutes later, as Mac wiped his eyes on one of the handkerchiefs and blew his nose, Beth ran into the courtyard, dropped the fistfuls of her dress's skirt that she had in her hands, and sat down cross-legged in front of the bench that Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley were sitting on.

Riley shot her a quizzical look, and Beth made a vague gesture in the direction of the infirmary with a hand.

'Cage told me to come here, as fast as I could.' She looked up at Mac, concerned. 'She told me what happened.'

Mac blew his nose again, and Jack patted his shoulder comfortingly, then withdrew his arm, as Bozer did the same.

The blonde took several deep breaths, each growing stronger and less shuddery, before speaking.

'What…what happened?'

Jack and Beth exchanged a glance, then the Knight swallowed and spoke.

'I was in the guardhouse when the intruder alert went off, so I got to him first.' He swallowed again, reaching up to put a hand on Mac's shoulder. 'He'd been badly hurt, real badly hurt, and he could barely speak, but…' He gestured to the pocketwatch in Mac's lap. 'He was clutching that, and he told me that he'd done it, his son was safe, and that his only regret…' He swallowed again, voice hoarse with emotion. '…his only regret was that he couldn't see him one last time, couldn't give him his watch, as was his by right.'

Mac stared at the pocketwatch for a long moment, picked it up and held it up to eye level, then glanced at Jack, then wiped his eyes with a fresh handkerchief, as Beth, voice soft and sad and sorry and the _tiniest_ bit guilty, spoke.

'I…I couldn't do anything but ease the pain for him.'

Mac looked up at her, and gave a little nod, knowing that she'd have done everything she could, and thankful for what care she'd been able to provide his father.

Jack spoke again, voice still rough and hoarse.

'We didn't get his name, but the least we could do was give him a proper funeral and burial.'

Beth gave a sad little nod with a matching little smile, looking up at Mac.

'We buried him as an unknown, brave, loving father.'

Mac inhaled a shuddery breath at that, closing his eyes for a moment, then opening them again.

'Where?'

* * *

Mac stared at the gravestone before him, at the very back of the garden, surrounded by trees, in a peaceful, private copse of sorts. The grave (his _father's_ grave) was well-kept, free of weeds, likely by magic, he thought.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, not able to find the words to say anything.

Wordlessly, Riley, then Beth, then Bozer, clasped his shoulder for a moment, then walked away, back towards the castle, leaving him with Jack.

Mac kept staring at his father's grave, crouching down and putting a hand on the earth, finally finding the words, as Jack crouched down next to him.

'I…I thought he abandoned me.' Mac swallowed. 'But…but he left because he loved me. Because he wanted to protect me.' He made a choked sound, gripping his father's pocketwatch tighter. 'He…he died to…'

He trailed off with another choked sound, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief again. Jack reached out, clasped the teen's shoulder.

'He was a great man, son. Wish I could've gotten to know him.'

Mac just nodded, and then, Jack squeezed Mac's shoulder one more time, got up and headed back towards the castle, giving him privacy.

* * *

A while later, Mac turned to look behind him as he heard footsteps approach, finding Patricia walking towards him, and stood.

She stopped a few feet in front of him and paused for a moment, dark eyes meeting his.

'I'm sorry, Mac.'

It was completely, truly heartfelt; he could see it in her eyes, even hear it in her voice. From nowhere, she drew a gold necklace and held it out to him.

Mac swallowed as he recognized the necklace, with its simple, but expertly-made, rose pendant.

It was his mother's necklace, the one that his father had made for her with his own hands, the one that his mother had worn always.

One of three things of any note that his dad had taken with him when he'd left.

His pocketwatch. His quarterstaff. And his wife's necklace.

'It was the only other thing, save for his clothes, that he had with him.'

Mac reached out and took the necklace with a little smile, rubbing his thumb over the pendant like he vaguely remembered doing when he was very small, when it had hung around his mother's neck.

When he looked up, that same little smile was reflected on Patricia's face, sad and soft and fond.

'What were their names?'

'James and Ellen.'

She nodded, and gestured elegantly to his father's headstone.

'May I?'

Mac nodded, and she made another little gesture, and the 'unknown' inscribed on the stone disappeared, and was replaced with 'James MacGyver'. The 'brave and loving father' portion remained, and another line of text was added below it: 'and husband to Ellen'.

Mac's little smile widened ever-so-slightly.

* * *

A little while later, as the sun set, Mac walked alone back to the castle, his father's pocketwatch in one pocket, his mother's necklace in another.

 _Honestly, for seven years, the worst part was the fact that I had no idea what had happened to my father. Where he'd gone, and why._

 _Sometimes, I found myself wishing that I'd just get a letter one day from another town, in which he told me that he'd started a new family and was disowning me._

 _That would still have been preferable to just living with questions, and nothing but questions._

Mac paused at the threshold of the door that led back inside from the gardens.

 _Now I know._

 _I know what happened to him. I know why he left._

 _And it wasn't because he didn't love me anymore. It wasn't because he wanted to start again, and I was holding him back._

 _He left for me._

 _And he died for me._

 _Because he loved me, and wanted to protect me._

 _I don't know if I can be as good a man as my father was._

 _He set a very, very high bar._

 _But I will always, always try._

* * *

Mac smiled as Bozer handed him a bowl of tomato soup, and then Riley passed him the basket of cheesy buns.

Several of them were somewhat misshapen due to Jack's attempts to help.

(He was no cook or baker, that was for sure.)

His smile widened further as a very, very familiar and much-beloved smell wafted through the air, as Beth entered the dining room, carrying an apple pie (a second floating behind her, followed by Cage), made according to the reconstructed version of his mother's recipe that they'd settled on after much trial-and-error.

 _I know now that I really am an orphan._

 _My mom died when I was five._

 _My dad died when I was ten._

 _But that doesn't mean I don't have family._

 _Not at all._

* * *

'It was a strange coincidence.'

Patricia stared at the empty spot on the shelf where James MacGyver's pocketwatch had sat that morning.

Jack, sitting on his favourite armchair, his feet on his favourite footstool, shrugged.

'Or maybe it's Fate, Patty.' She quirked an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged again. 'Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Kid says that coincidences are statistically inevitable.' He made a face. 'Tried to show me some math to prove it or something…'

Her eyes softened into something fond and amused at that.

Jack hid his smirk behind his tankard of beer.

He knew Patty really did care about the teens. A lot.

Maybe she could adopt one of them as her heir if they ever got this curse broken.

Their reactions would be _hilarious._

* * *

'…Rich colours are coming into fashion, and it'll look better if you add another pleat here…'

Bozer, his mouth full of pins, shot Riley a thumbs-up as he pleated the fabric on the dress that the dummy in front of them was wearing.

For a girl who essentially always wore trousers and a shirt, she had very strong opinions on gowns, and great taste.

* * *

A large stone statue, a model of the castle, perfectly scaled, rose out of the ground of the courtyard, then, with a single movement of Riley's left hand, disintegrated into nothingness.

Then, Riley disappeared from the centre of the courtyard, and reappeared standing on the roof.

Patricia nodded in approval, something in her eyes that Riley was quite sure was pride.

* * *

'Chocolate-dipped strawberry?'

Jack held out the bowl to Patricia, as the two of them sat in the gardens on a picnic blanket.

(They were sure that if they attempted to go back inside, they'd find themselves somehow thwarted, so it wasn't worth the effort to try.)

(Besides, they had a lovely dinner that they hadn't had to put any effort into, and it wasn't as if they didn't enjoy each other's company anyway.)

She took one with a small smile and a graceful inclining of her head, ate it, and then took another one.

(She had a secret soft-spot for chocolate.)

(Jack knew that.)

* * *

Riley stared at the odd sandwich (at least, that's what it most resembled) on the plate in front of her, which Bozer was holding out to her eagerly.

There was a disc of grilled ground meat topped with a thin slice of cheese, which was melted, as well as some lettuce leaves, slices of pickles, slices of fresh tomato, mayonnaise, and a sauce made of tomatoes.

She reached out, took the plate, picked up the odd sandwich-like foodstuff with both hands, and took a bite.

Her eyes widened as she chewed, and she looked down at the foodstuff, then back up at Bozer, something akin to wonderment and awe in her eyes.

She swallowed, and immediately took another bite, very, very eagerly, and Bozer grinned in satisfaction, an expression that was almost a smirk.

Riley took another two bites, and then, she looked up at him again.

'What is this?'

He smirked.

'Well, it's a Wilt Bozer original that I've decided to call a hamburger.' Her brow furrowed; there was no ham in this 'hamburger', and Bozer continued. 'It's named after this place in Germany; I found this book on German foodstuffs, and this is inspired by this local delicacy from Hamburg called the _Rundst_ _ü_ _ck warm_ …'

* * *

'…Well, infinite diversity in infinite combinations, so anything and everything is possible if you accept that argument.'

As Mac and Beth walked through the garden one night, after dinner, talking, Beth paused in her steps, and looked up at him, a sad, wistful little smile on her face, in her voice, like there'd been that very first night in the infirmary when he'd asked how old she was.

'So by that logic, there's a universe out there where there was no curse, where you came to the castle to be my father's apprentice, and we met and became friends and…'

She trailed off, a little awkwardly, cheeks pinking a little under the moonlight, and Mac simply smiled at her.

'Well, then I'd have been able to make you a better 17th birthday present.'

He was working on one already. It was a spaghetti-machine, a traditional Engineer training tool (if you could make something inefficient, you could make something efficient – according to legend, the name came from the fact that the very first one had made pasta very inefficiently).

She blinked twice, and when she spoke, her voice was soft and sad and happy and the tiniest bit hopeful and, above all, disbelieving.

'You're making me a 17th birthday present?'

Beth might be cheerful and bright by nature (everyone in the castle was, really, deep down, in their heart-of-hearts, an optimist, or they'd have gone insane decades ago), but after 200 years, it was very, very hard to have more than a tiny scrap of hope that the curse could be broken.

Even with Riley and Bozer's plans.

Mac nodded, and acting on impulse, reached out and took her hand.

'Yeah, I am.' He paused, eyes seeking out hers, and spoke insistently, confidently. 'We're going to break this curse, whether by Cage, Matty and Patricia's research and magic, possibly with Riley's help, or by Riley and Bozer's plans succeeding, or by inviting guests to the castle…whatever it takes, Beth.' He squeezed her hand. 'We're going to break it, I promise.'

She stared at him for a long moment, seemingly lost for words, then reached out and hugged him.

 _Some things are far, far easier to express in something other than words._

'Thanks, Mac.'

He tucked his head over her shoulder with a smile.

 _Or, it's far easier to express something very, very complex with a couple of simple words and a gesture._

* * *

AN: This story was finished just before 2.13, CO2 Sensor + Tree Branch, so 'left to protect his son' was just the reason why Mac's dad left that I thought was mostly likely as of 2.12, Mac + Jack. Mac's mother's necklace is another nod to the original Disney _Beauty and the Beast,_ I tried to put a few nods to it throughout the story…

And yes, in this AU, Bozer is the inventor of the hamburger. I just couldn't resist!


	11. Chapter 11

Mac grinned and sipped at his Yule punch, his free hand toying with the brand-new necklace around his neck, a silver version of the crest of the Order of Engineers, the mark of an apprentice, gifted to him by the Queen.

The castle's inhabitants didn't usually do Yule gifts of much note (foodstuffs, homemade trinkets or flowers were popular gifts exchanged), since they had been stuck in the castle for 200 years; they'd largely run out of ideas for gifts, but since it was Mac, Bozer and Riley's first Yule, they'd gotten some pretty substantial gifts.

Mac was also wearing his second gift, a brand-new brown leather Engineer's coat, which Beth had sewn.

Riley had been gifted a book of magic, and was wearing a very beautiful dress with intricate embroidery, sewn by Bozer with input from her in the design process.

Bozer, meanwhile, had received a brand-new frying pan (his, as attached as he was to it, was quite battered), plus several custom kitchen utensils that Mac and Michael had put together for him. He also now possessed a letter from the Queen naming him the official Cook of the castle.

Riley made a gesture, and Mac's modified musical instruments changed from playing Yule carols to music for dancing, and Mac gave a fond little shake of his head when the teenage girl shot him a look.

 _That's my cue to implement Plan H._

 _Yes, we're up to H._

He finished his punch, then walked over to Jack, who was talking to Cage and Matty.

Mac leaned over and spoke quietly to the older man, gesturing towards Patricia, who was talking to Michael and Caitlyn.

'Why don't you ask her to dance, Jack?' He paused. 'I'll…I'll ask Beth if you ask Patricia?'

Jack turned his head and shot him a look, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, something about Mac being hopeless.

However, he nodded and handed his goblet of punch to Matty, with a request for her to look after it.

(Mac briefly wondered whether that was a good idea; he had a sneaking suspicion that Matty might spike it…)

Jack then cuffed Mac lightly on the shoulder, gesturing to where Beth was laughing at something that Bozer had said.

'Don't you dare chicken out, brother.'

(A little part of Mac really did want to chicken out – he was a _terrible_ dancer – but this was for Plan H. Riley would be furious with him, as would Bozer, if he chickened out.)

(Besides, it was all towards the goal of breaking the curse, and he'd promised Beth, after all.)

(And he did really want to dance with her.)

So, he smirked and shook his head at Jack, pointing at him.

'Not going to. Don't _you_ dare chicken out.'

As the two of them walked off to prove that neither of them were going to chicken out, Matty and Cage just exchanged knowing smiles that were almost smirks, Matty's closer to a smirk than Cage's.

Cage then waved a hand and a metal flask appeared and started pouring a healthy measure of liquor into Jack's punch.

Matty's smirk widened.

* * *

Riley grinned, an expression that was almost a smirk, as she and Bozer watched Plan H come to fruition.

Bozer, too, grinned and held out a fist to Riley, who bumped her own to it.

'Plan H was an awesome idea, Riley.' He pointed at her. 'It's totally inspired the latest chapter of my new story! I'm giving you credit, of course.'

Riley gave a snort and shook her head, a rather fond gesture.

(Bozer's writing was…interesting.)

'Is this the one with the undead?'

Bozer crossed his arms.

'Yeah. Don't be a hater!' He huffed. 'No-one appreciates true creative genius when it first arrives on the scene, but time will tell, Riley, time will tell!'

She nodded slowly, sceptically, an eyebrow raised, but didn't say anything more and just drank the rest of her punch.

Then, she grabbed Bozer by the elbow.

'Come on, let's dance.'

As Riley tugged him onto the dancefloor (well, would have tugged if he was offering any resistance whatsoever…), Bozer just smirked.

'Did I tell you about the time I won me and Mac's town's dancing competition? Well, I would have won if Donnie Sandoz hadn't tripped me in the middle of it, but…semantics…'

* * *

A piece of mistletoe appeared over Jack and Patricia's heads as they danced, completely out of thin air.

It followed them around, too, as they moved.

It also took them five minutes to notice.

(Cage and Matty, sitting at the table, drinking punch and eating Bozer's delicious gingerbread, just gave knowing smirks that no-one except Jill noticed.)

(Everyone else was very distracted.)

Eventually, Patricia gestured upwards with a slight, subtle nod of her head, and Jack, being Jack, looked up, rather obviously.

He chuckled and shook his head fondly.

'The kiddos ain't gonna let up, are they?'

Patricia, too, gave a little smile that he knew to be fond, shaking her head slightly.

'No.'

'Well, gotta give them points for trying.' They kept dancing for a moment longer, then, slowly, a smirk spread across Jack's face. He leaned forwards to whisper in Patricia's ear, and when he leaned back again, she simply quirked an eyebrow at him. Jack gave her his most winning grin. 'Come on, Patty, it's Yule!'

She smiled as wide as she ever did, then lifted a finger.

The charmed mistletoe over their heads disappeared, and reappeared over Caitlyn and Michael's heads.

* * *

The enchanted piece of mistletoe lowered itself downwards, waggling, until it reached the top of a previously-oblivious Mac's field of vision.

He stumbled slightly in his dancing, which made Beth stumble too. He mentally kicked himself and reassured himself that he'd at least caught her, while she looked quizzically up at him (Mac wasn't a particularly talented dancer, but he was very coordinated and agile, so while he lacked rhythm and finesse, stumbling was very unexpected), and her eyes caught on the mistletoe.

Her eyes widened a little, and her cheeks pinked, while his ears burned under his hair. After a rather awkward moment of staring at each other, Beth gave an awkward little half-shrug, then tilted her head to the left and pointed up at the mistletoe.

'Why would the Norse choose a poisonous, parasitic weed as a symbol of friendship? It really doesn't seem to be a sensible or logical choice, symbolically…'

He laughed.

'You know, maybe there's a really good story there.'

'One Viking saved another from mistletoe poisoning?'

She sounded half-considering, half-sceptical, which made his smile widen a little, and he shrugged.

'Legends often start small.'

She nodded.

'True.' Then, she fell silent for a moment, looking up at him, the flush on her cheeks darkening. 'I suppose no matter how it started, it _is_ tradition, so…'

She reached up and kissed his cheek, gently and shyly, her own cheeks pinking further. He grinned, probably stupidly, but found that he didn't really care.

 _My grandfather always said that the best Yule gifts were the immaterial gifts._

 _Spending time with your loved ones, singing carols by the fire, getting caught under the mistletoe with that someone special…_

 _Now, when I was a boy, I agreed with the first two._

 _The third, not so much._

 _Well, Grandfather, I get it now._

* * *

Riley gave a snort of laughter and shook her head, then something in her peripheral vision caught her eye. She tapped the back of Bozer's shoulder with her fingers.

'Boze…Plan J kinda backfired.'

She motioned upwards to the floating piece of mistletoe.

Bozer's eyes widened quite comically, and he instantly removed his hand from her waist and let go of the hand that he was holding with his other hand, holding his hands up instead.

'We don't have to if you don't want to…I mean, _pshaw_ to tradition, we're hip, ground-breaking trailblazers!'

Riley snapped her fingers as Bozer kept rambling on about being cool and innovative and the importance of consent and the fact that they were friends and he was definitely cool with that, and the mistletoe disappeared, then waved her hands, and she and Bozer disappeared from the Great Hall, reappearing in the nook where they'd eaten their very first breakfast in the castle.

(She'd finally managed to nail teleportation to places that she was familiar with, but didn't have a line of sight to, and just two days previously, had managed to transport Patricia with her.)

'Bozer, stop talking.'

He did, immediately, looking around as he took in their new surroundings.

She could tell that it was on the tip of his tongue to start complimenting her on her awesome magic skills, as he'd put it.

With a surprisingly almost-slightly-shy smile, she grabbed his collar and kissed him.

* * *

Very late that night, after the celebrations had ended, Jack escorted his lady back to her chambers.

(He'd been raised right by his mama, thank you very much.)

Just outside her door, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, very sweetly.

(That surprised him – Patty was many things, and nowhere near as cold as all those horrible legends suggested, but sweet wasn't something he'd expected, not at all…)

'Happy Yule, Jack.'

There was a soft, fond little smile on her face, and he smiled that same smile back at her.

'Happy Yule, Patty.'

* * *

Patricia lifted a finger, and the pot of hot chocolate flew over and re-filled Jack's mug.

He grinned and raised it to her in a toast of thanks, then resumed leaning on the low stone wall of the laundry courtyard, watching the youth of the castle toast 'marshmallows' around the fire, a happy, fond smile on his face.

(Beth and Bozer had made 'marshmallows' last week, by combining dried mallow root, sugar, egg whites and water, in a reproduction of a type of medicine described in a very old book from Egypt. The 'marshmallows', Jack had discovered, were just about the only delicious medicine he'd ever taken, though Beth and Caitlyn were both sceptical on their medicinal properties.)

(It had then been discovered by Mac, quite accidentally, that they were even better toasted over an open flame.)

(He, like everyone else in the castle, had been given a couple to try on a plate by Beth and Bozer, but he'd promptly forgotten about them while he was working on his latest project. The project had caught fire, and before he knew it, Mac had accidentally toasted his 'marshmallows'.)

Jack sipped his hot chocolate, then glanced at Matty (standing on a raised patch of earth that had appeared, courtesy of Patricia, as soon as she'd stepped close to the wall, so she could rest her elbows comfortably on it), who had a similar smile to his on her face too.

(Even she sometimes forgot how young her apprentice was. Cage was twenty, barely into adulthood herself, but even before the curse, she'd been acting like an adult for far too many years. It warmed Matty to see her light-hearted and youthful, using her magic to put out a burning 'marshmallow', laughing and teasing with the others.)

Michael, drinking his own hot chocolate on Matty's other side, was recounting the tale of how Mac had accidentally toasted 'marshmallows' (with great and detailed descriptions of the thingamajig that the blonde had been building at the time, his voice full of pride) to his wife (who had heard it twice already, but had always been very indulgent of what Jack saw as her husband's mild insanity).

Jack's smile widened a little as he glanced back at the rather chaotic scene in front of them (Mac and Bozer were, for some reason, having some kind of swordfight using their 'marshmallow' toasting sticks, while all four girls exchanged eye-rolls and very exasperated looks that were also fond).

He glanced back over at Patricia, who had something very soft, very fond, almost-warm in her eyes, matching the small smile on her face.

Jack had absolutely no idea why (and he barely remembered doing it), but his hand, resting on the stone wall, slid along it slightly towards hers, just close enough that their pinkies touched.

She didn't pull her hand away.

* * *

'No.'

Patricia stared at the image in her crystal ball, willing that her eyes were deceiving her.

But they weren't.

She knew that.

For 200 years, she'd known that it was possible something like this could happen.

Her castle was home to many, many magical artefacts. Truly powerful ones.

Ones that some magical practitioners would kill to possess.

But as every year had passed, she'd thought it less and less likely that an attack would come to pass.

Fewer and fewer people knew of the castle's location and its magical contents, after all.

But unlikely wasn't impossible, as she knew every well.

This wizard who called himself Murdoc was on his way. He would arrive in a few hours.

He was amoral. He longed for power. He was very, very powerful. Maybe more than she was. Maybe even more than Riley was.

And he would not stop until he got what he wanted.

She looked over at the man sitting in his favourite armchair. His feet were no longer up on his favoured footstool, as he'd straightened up and grown serious the moment she'd seen Murdoc in the images, having read the gist of them by what little had flitted across her face.

'We got a problem, don't we, Patty?'

* * *

'We're meant to protect you, Patty. _I'm_ meant to protect you! I swore it, you're my Queen!'

Alone in her study, Jack and Patricia argued, as Matty supervised the construction of additional traps and defences, both magical and not, around the castle.

Her Captain of the Guard argued that she should stay in her study (the most secure chamber in the whole castle, as that was where all the powerful magical artefacts were kept), let him and the other inhabitants of the castle protect her, as was their duty, as was his duty.

She argued that she should fight, too, to defend herself, her home, and her people.

(She also suspected that, with Murdoc's power, without her aid, they'd not stand much of a chance.)

'I'm hardly a Queen anymore, Jack.' He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. 'It's the truth.'

'That don't change our oaths, Patty, it-'

She reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, which at least had the effect of startling him enough that he fell silent. She looked up ever-so-slightly into his eyes.

'It's never just been about duty to you, Jack. You protect the people who matter to you, the people you love.' She paused. 'Let me do the same.'

They stared at each other for a long moment, then Jack nodded.

'Just…just be careful, okay, Patty?'

She, too, nodded, squeezing his wrist lightly for a moment.

'You too.'

* * *

'Mac.' Beth reached out and caught his arm as he finished assembling a trap with a nod to her father (to whom she'd been talking quietly), and held out one of her darts to him. 'It's a potion that will dull magic.' She bit her lip. 'I don't have much of it, and he's so strong that it won't be enough to suppress his magic completely, but it should buy you some time…'

She'd already given one to everyone else who didn't have magic (except Jack; she had one more left for him, but hadn't been able to find him yet).

He took the dart and carefully put it in one of the pockets of his Engineer's coat, then reached out and took her hand for a moment, squeezing gently.

'Thanks.'

* * *

Riley buckled her knife belt around her waist, checking that each of the knives was in its proper place, as Bozer attached his club to his belt, and, for good measure, that trusty old frying pan that he'd quite spectacularly and heroically used on that man-at-arms months and months ago.

They stared at each other for a long moment when they were both done, before Bozer spoke.

'A year ago, I could _not_ have imagined that this is where I'd wind up.'

Riley gave a snort.

'Yeah, me neither.'

'But I wouldn't change it for the world.'

There was a little smile on his face when he said that, and Riley smiled back, then kissed him on the cheek.

'Me neither.'

* * *

'Mac, can you promise me two things?'

Michael spoke as he and Mac finished putting the final touches on the latest in a long series of traps (this one involved their flying machine – which still wasn't quite where they wanted it to be, but it was good enough for this trap), nodding to Cage to magic it into place on the Entrance Hall's large crystal chandelier.

Mac simply nodded, already having a very strong suspicion as to what his mentor was about to ask of him.

'Promise me that you won't let our craft die.' His expression softened, even as a little, wry smile appeared on his face, coupled with something in his eyes that seemed to wish they were having this conversation at another time. 'And care for my daughter. Be there for her.'

The implication of his requests, that Mac execute these promises if he survived, but the Engineer did not, was unspoken.

Mac nodded again, his gaze holding the older man's.

'No matter what happens, I promise.'

* * *

'There's no-one else I'd rather be trapped in a castle with for 200 years…' Jack, standing on top of a table as he gave the rallying, inspirational pre-battle speech he'd insisted upon delivering to all of the castle's motley crew of defenders, teasingly gestured to Mac. 'Except you, son, 'cause you're too crazy to spend more than a couple of years anywhere with.'

There were several snorts, including from Mac, who also shook his head.

'Yeah, I couldn't put up with more than a couple of years of your habit of constantly talking my ear off either, Jack.'

Jack's expression then turned more serious, as he surveyed everyone before him, his family, again.

'Ain't nobody I'd rather fight alongside either.'

'The feeling's mutual, Jack.'

That was said by Matty, who had a small smile on her face.

As they broke off into their pre-assigned groups for the fight, Bozer nudged Jack with his elbow.

'See? She really does like you!' A smirk appeared on his face. 'But she said she liked me first!'

* * *

AN: Apologies for the 'choppy' nature of this chapter, with the two halves being so very different…it was either do this, or have a really unbalanced pair of chapters, one very short, and one very long, so…

Yes, in this AU, Bozer invented the zombie genre.


	12. Chapter 12

Cage threw one of her knives at the evil sorcerer, only for the blade to turn around in thin air, and fly right back at her, far too fast for her to dodge or block it, as Murdoc turned and smirked evilly at her.

It stabbed her through the stomach, making her emit a noise of pain, as the wizard turned away from her again, turning his attention back to combating the mob of cutlery that was attacking him, thanks to Jill, swatting at the knives and forks as if they were annoying flies, and just as easily as if they were too.

She struggled and pulled the knife from her body with her magic, sending the bloodied blade at Murdoc's turned back, but it simply turned around and pierced her again, as the wizard flung Jill and her animated cutlery aside, before rounding on Cage. He stalked over to her, leaned down as she whimpered and panted in pain, bleeding profusely all over her shirt from the two stab wounds, and gave a dark little smirk.

'I'll leave you to die now.'

He turned away from her again, pulling a sword from nowhere and blocking Mac's quarterstaff as the teenager tried to launch a surprise attack on the sorcerer.

Murdoc, Cage feared, was too good, too strong, too powerful. There may be only one of him, but he had animated so many things to fight against them…

Bozer was struggling against an animated wardrobe wielding a carving knife in its 'hand'. As the Spymaster's apprentice watched, the wardrobe stabbed the carving knife into Bozer's stomach, and he fell to the ground. With great determination, Cage started trying to pull herself over to him, to see if she could help in some way or the other, despite her own injuries. She even willed her magic to set the damned wardrobe on fire, but found that she couldn't muster the strength.

Nonetheless, the wardrobe caught fire anyway, as an answering fire appeared in Riley's eyes. A moment later, however, her ankles and wrists were bound with rope, and a gag stuffed in her mouth, and despite her struggles, she was sent flying into a large trunk, which then locked.

The trunk, Cage noted with some satisfaction, then started jumping around as Riley tried to fight it and Murdoc's magic from the inside.

'Jack, duck!'

Beth called out from the ceiling, to which she was chained, spread-eagled, trying to help in any way she could.

Murdoc simply rolled his eyes as if she was an annoying chirping bird while he was trying to sleep and not even a second later, a gag stuffed itself into her mouth too, silencing her.

Cage, now a few feet away from Bozer, was feeling very, very woozy. Her vision was starting to go blurry around the edges…

The last thing she remembered was the Queen being struck in the shoulder by a ball of pure magical energy, throwing her backwards slightly, almost off her feet…

* * *

Jack's life had flashed before his eyes more than once.

Those strange moments when time, almost, seemed to slow, so that, as your movements were no faster, it was like moving through molasses…

He was helpless to do anything, like a rabbit caught in a snare, except to watch as his very own longsword, Ol' Faithful, came flying at him, turned against him (quite literally) by magic…

* * *

Mac, very, very dazed, slowly regained consciousness, blinking blearily (Murdoc had flung him very hard into the stone wall of the Entrance Hall via a blow to the left shoulder with a ball of magic), only to see Patricia throw herself between Jack and Ol' Faithful, flinging one last magical blow at Murdoc as she did so.

He saw the emotions cross Jack's face as he realized what was happening, he saw what was in Patricia's eyes as she fell, and Mac knew then that the goal that he, Riley, Bozer, Beth, Jill and Cage had been working towards for months had been achieved.

It was just too late.

Mac reached out, scrabbling for his quarterstaff, a couple of feet away from him, where he'd dropped it when he'd hit the wall, struggling to stand back up.

Angus MacGyver never gave up. He didn't believe in lost causes.

His hands closed on his staff just as Jack cried out…

'Patty!'

…and a bright, white light filled the room…

* * *

Bozer, whose eyes had been drifting closed, darkness overtaking him, suddenly saw a flash of white light through his eyelids, and forced his eyes open as the light receded and he heard a feminine shriek from the direction of the ceiling.

It was, surprisingly, not difficult.

That pain in his abdomen, that weakening he'd been feeling, was suddenly gone. Slowly, Bozer lifted a hand (easily, also surprisingly) and felt his abdomen, but found no traces of sticky blood, and it seemed as if his shirt was completely undamaged.

He sat up, brow furrowing, and looked around.

Matty, her head no longer bloodied, was staring at the pile of Murdoc's clothing in the middle of the Entrance Hall, as was Jill, who was no longer slumped against the wall with her arm bent at an unnatural angle.

Michael and Caitlyn were sitting where Bozer swore there was a huge pile of rubble earlier, completely unharmed and also completely free of dust.

Bozer made eye contact with Cage, who was similarly staring around, completely free of the two stab wounds Bozer had seen her suffer out of the corner of his eye, then made eye contact with Riley, who was standing in the opened trunk she'd been locked in, her limbs unbound, eyes wide.

Jack and Patricia were in the middle of the Entrance Hall, not far from Murdoc's clothing, the Knight helping his Queen to sit up, the two of them staring at each other.

Bozer looked up (watching them felt like intruding on a private moment), and discovered that Beth was drifting down from the ceiling, looking quite shocked by the fact.

(The shriek must have been her, when she'd been released from her chains, fearful of falling, but apparently, whatever had just happened – presumably the curse breaking, given how Jack and Patricia were looking at each other – had provided for that too.)

Bozer flung his arms up in the air.

'We're all fine? Really?'

Riley snorted, but it was an affectionate sound regardless.

'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Bozer.'

Cage raised a brow at him with a little half-shrug.

'The curse was always unusual.'

Bozer shook his head again, glancing over at his best friend to ask for his opinion, but found that he was otherwise occupied, because, with his quick reflexes and even quicker wits, he'd managed to catch Beth, and was now holding her bridal-style. Mac's ears were very red and her cheeks were very pink, and they were both looking rather goofily at each other, apparently struck dumb. Eventually, somewhat awkwardly, Mac put her down gently, though that didn't change the looks or smiles.

'Ugh. I did not want to have to see _that_ …'

Bozer turned as he heard Riley speak, and found that Jack, lacking propriety as always, had simply kissed Patricia, cupping her face in his hands, in the middle of the Entrance Hall. She was also kissing him back, though she pulled away a moment later, raising an eyebrow at him.

Jack, smirking quite unrepentantly, just looked around at the assembled no-longer-cursed inhabitants of the castle.

'Uh…we're just gonna go discuss important business, you know, what to do now that we're not cursed anymore and all…alone.'

They got up and walked up the stairs, disappearing towards her chambers, not fooling anyone, just as the very first light of the new day began to peek through the windows.

Bozer reached out and hugged Riley tightly, a gesture she reciprocated, before kissing him lightly. Bozer then reached out and pulled Jill into a side-hug. Cage and Matty exchanged a knowing, happy smile, then the younger woman crouched down and hugged the older. Beth's parents walked over, hand in hand, to stand next to their daughter, as Mac reached out and took Beth's hand, lifting it and kissing her knuckles.

'Happy Birthday, Beth.'

 _Tomorrow has finally come._

 _And now, tomorrow will always come._

* * *

A year and a day after the breaking of the curse, Bozer and Mac stood in the groom's chamber with Jack, the former helping Jack into his very fancy wedding clothes (which Bozer had made for him), as the latter tried to soothe Jack's nerves.

(The only reason why it was a year and a day was because royal weddings took a lot of time to plan, particularly when you had a kingdom to rebuild at the same time. Neither the groom nor the bride, despite what you might have expected from her, cared much about the traditional year-and-a-day betrothal period in Phoenix for royalty and nobility.)

'What if I forget my lines? Patty'll kill me if I forget my lines!'

'A, you are not going to forget your lines. I heard you practicing _in the privy_ , Jack. B, Patricia is not going to kill you, no matter how badly you screw up.'

Bozer, done with his task of dressing Jack and doing any last-minute alterations, removed the pins from his mouth and snickered.

'Seriously, man, you're a Knight of Phoenix! Aren't you supposed to be crazy-brave?'

Mac, meanwhile, was snickering at Jack's ludicrously ostentatious outfit.

Jack rolled his eyes and waggled a finger at both of them.

'Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want, but it's gonna be you two soon enough!'

 _My wedding is going to be nowhere near as fancy, thank you very much. We're thinking a nice, quiet affair with our family in the castle gardens, complete with music provided by the modified musical instruments and a wedding pie - well, actually, two; one apple, one pumpkin - instead of cake._

 _Though, if Jack and Patricia really do follow through with their plan to adopt Riley as her heir and Crown Princess of Phoenix, Riley and Bozer might not have a choice in the matter…_

 _Royal weddings require a certain level of fuss and pomp and ceremony, after all._

Quite suddenly, Riley, wearing an extremely pretty bridesmaid's dress, also made by Bozer, appeared in the middle of the room, which made all three of them jump.

'Ack!'

'Gah!'

'Chime or something next time, Riles!'

The young woman gave a mischievous little smirk at their reactions, but nodded anyway, then ran an eye over Jack.

'Bozer did a great job, but you still look ridiculous, old man.'

Jack affected an affronted expression.

'Hey, I'll have you know that this is _Italian wool._ You don't knock Italian wool, Ri!'

Riley raised a sceptical eyebrow, quite sure that Jack only knew the value of Italian wool because Bozer had been going on and on about it during all his fittings for his wedding clothes.

(Which was true.)

'Anyway, what are you doing here, kiddo?'

She shrugged, a deliberately nonchalant gesture.

'Just making sure you weren't getting cold feet and planning to run off.' From the look in her eyes, there was absolutely no way that was the reason. 'Thought I'd just check in on you.'

That was far closer to the truth.

Jack smiled, soft and fond and slow.

'My feet are toasty-warm. Thanks, Riles.'

At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and at Jack's 'come in', the door opened to reveal Beth, also wearing a bridesmaid's dress, a necklace with a rose pendant far more precious than the gold it was made from around her neck, with a wide smile on her face.

'It's time.'

* * *

 _And they all lived happily ever after._

* * *

AN: Well, I don't have to say much more than that, right? (And yes, of course the story had to end with them all living happily ever after! What do you take me for?) Thank you for joining me on this crazy, I-have-no-idea-where-this-came-from ride!

My next _MacGyver_ fairytale adaptation, _Give Your Heart a Chance,_ a retelling of _Cinderella,_ will start posting tomorrow. The summary is as follows:

Angus MacGyver. Genius. Billionaire. Philanthropist. Definitely not a playboy. After one too many heartbreaks, Mac's heart is so guarded that his friends fear he'll never find the right one. Throw in a couple of coincidences, some meddling, a hard-working, brilliant, beautiful young doctor and you have a modern-day fairytale.


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